Section III

CHAPTER FIRST

necessity of a Trinity, which then possessed the Church so strongly, and which sought satisfaction in all possible directions, may have led some to the verge of Tritheism: and this passage gives us a hint, where those who gave way to such a tendency are to be sought. It is a modified form of Marcionitism, adapted to the striving after a doctrine of the Trinity which characterized this century, that here presents itself to us. To Marcion's God of legislation, and to the God of incarnation, there was added, at this time, the Holy Spirit. If we note further, as did the Roman Dionysius, that the Sabellians were intent above all things on the assertion of the divine unity, whereas these Tritheists had landed in a triplicity of principles, we shall agree with him in judging them to be diametrically opposed to each other. At the same time, this does not prevent us seeing that there is a connection between the two. We found above (see Note 34, and the passage to which it relates, page 167), that when the Sabellians tried to maintain the newness of the objective revelation in Christ—a point to which Marcion attached prime importance—or, as we are now in a position to say, when they yielded to the trinitarian impulse of their age, they actually might be easily led to the ro^tat?, Suupiaeaiv, tnroppoiais, with which Theodoret reproaches them. The Arians, too, almost constantly charge the Sabellians with dividing the divine unity (Note 38); and Athanasius and Hilary partially follow their example; so that it is not improbable, that in Africa Marcionitism and Sabellianism were so commingled, that the entire divine essence was, strictly speaking, held to be compounded of these principles.

After pronouncing an adverse judgment on the Sabellian doctrine, the Roman Dionysius passes on to the consideration of the doctrine of the Alexandrian Bishop (without, however, mentioning his name), the natural tendency of which was to reduce the Son to the rank of a mundane being. If the Son were born (7ei^ros), if we may say that He was formed and created, then there must have been a time when as yet He was not. He was, however, always in the Father (who can never have been without power and wisdom), as His power and wisdom (Note 39). Of this absurd consequence, that the Father was once without Son, those, he goes on to say, appear to have taken no notice, who term the Son a creature (ktutiul). They do not understand Proverbs viii. 22—" The Lord created me as (geschafen ah) the beginning of His ways"—aright; for the passage refers to the dominion transferred over created things; and other passages which speak of the generation of the Son ought to be compared. His view of the true doctrine of the Church, which preserves equally the divine Trinity and the holy proclamation of the divine fiovapyia, he expresses in the following words:—" With the God of the universe, the divine Logos must necessarily be united; but in God, the Holy Spirit also must be and dwell. But now the divine Trias must needs again be combined and summed up in one, as in a head, that is, I mean, in the Almighty God of the universe." (De deer. Nic. 26: —'HvaxrOcu yap avdr/Krj rco Qeq> T&v Oxcdv rbv Oelov Twyov ifi<f>iXoycopelv Be Tc O Qe& Kcu ivSiardaOai Bel To dyiov irvevfia' rjBrj Kal jrjv Oelav rpidBa ets eva &airep eh teopv<ptfv riva (rbv Qeov Tcov 'oxcov Tov iravroKpdropa X^yco) air/Ke<paXaiovaOal re Kal avvdyeaOai iraaa dvwyKrj. Mapictcovos yaprovfiariu6<f>povos SiBayfia, et ? rpei? dpyas T?)? fiovapylas rOfiijv ical Siaipeaiv (sc. elacpepovros), K.t.x.) Dionysius of Alexandria trod so closely in the footsteps of this significant statement, in his Defence, that the formula itself is legible out of the main position which he lays down. "So we unfold," says he, "the indivisible Monas into a Trias, and sum the Trias up again, undiminished, in the Monas (et? Ttjv fiovdBa avyicecpakaiovfieOa, de Sent. Dionys. 17)." The utmost difference between the two is, that the Alexandrian Dionysius gives more decided expression to the distinction than is given to it by the formula of the Roman Bishop; and that, further, the former allows the hypostasis of the Father more distinctly to predominate, if, as is probable, he assigned to the Monas the place of the Father. It is possible, however, that the Koman understood by icopvfo) the Father, and that the entire divine sphere presented itself to his mind under the image of a triangle, whose uppermost angle is the Father.¹

^J The other view would be,—The three constitute the one Almighty God, concentring in Him, as different lines converge in one point or in one centre. On this view, as well as on the other, the distinctions are taken for granted, that is, the existence of a Trinity is presupposed; and then steps are taken to combine them. In the latter case, however, the three are and remain completely co-ordinated, which was not as yet the case even in the system of Athanasius.

One might almost wish, with Neander, that Dionysius of Alexandria had not so soon given way, but that the struggle which so nearly awaited the Church, and of which a feeble prelude occurred even in the third century, had been fought out peacefully and thoroughly between men of like spirit such as these. Not merely single individuals, however, but the Church as a whole, was destined to take part in the great work, in order that the knowledge which should finally result from bringing the discerpted elements into the fullest antagonism to each other, might the more clearly and surely become common property. But even these discussions must have exerted a most important influence on the more extended ones that followed, and, as it were, have chalked out the course they should pursue. And as this struggle preluded the great Arian controversy, so also did the decision arrived at prelude the decision in the case of Arianism. As the Alexandrian Dionysius, by withdrawing the Arian proposition which he had advanced, did justice to that general Christian consciousness which had always retained its power over him, and which could never be satisfied with a redemption effected by a mere creature, however exalted; so are we fully warranted in anticipating that the Church, however great its previous vacillation, will prove capable of taking the right course, relatively to the points which constitute its foundation. But even at the time of Dionysius, the circumstance brought out during the struggle, that no one of the controversialists was disposed to treat the Son as a mere creature, or even consciously and decidedly to subordinate Him to the Father, must have greatly tended to strengthen this common consciousness. The principle of the equality of the essence of the Son with that of the Father, laid down by the early Church, was merely revived by these controversies; but, in consequence of the temporary effort to conceive the Son as posited in time, had developed into a clear conviction that Origen's doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son was an inevitable consequence of the coessentiality or true deity of the Son, and must be adopted by the Church, unless it were prepared to pass over into Sabellianism or Arianism.

From the time of Tertullian onwards, the Eastern Church alone was the arena of doctrinal movements; the Western Church disappeared from the scene. Dionysius of Kome was tie first to lead the Western Church again to take part in the movement: but he was so far in advance, as compared with Tertullian, and so very different from him, that, in order to account for the sudden leap, we naturally look for connecting links between the two; and such connecting links there must unquestionably have been. Whilst the Greek Church had made such affinity with Hellenic philosophy, that it was unable entirely to break away from the conception of God, as the *Ov (even the ayevryrov, which was employed to denote deity "sensu strictissimo," and was deemed predicable of the Father alone, was merely a new form of the *Ov),—the natural consequence whereof was, that the Son could not be represented as participating in the inmost divine essence, and must, therefore, even though in part contrary to intention, be subordinated to the Most High God;—the Western Church continued, as it would appear, a stranger to the Hellenic philosophy, and its idea of God. Taking the facts of Christianity for its startingpoint, it ventured to undertake the transformation of the old conception of God, in a trinitarian sense; and never ceased to attribute to the Son true divine substance,—as, indeed, followed naturally enough from the circumstance, that it did not, like Origen, assume a divine *Ov back of the divine oofa, but reckoned this divine So^a, in which the Son was acknowledged to participate, as part of the inner divine essence, or reckoned the inner divine essence to the S6i-a. We have seen that Tertullian and his school were unable to establish the hypostasis of the Son, on which they insisted so strongly, and which, it is true, they held to have proceeded forth from the inmost essence of God, save at the price of a decided subordination under the Father. In the hands of Dionysius, on the contrary, half a century later, we find that things wear altogether a different appearance,—that subordination, namely, has been strongly repressed, and that the unity of the essence of the Father and of the Son is not merely asserted, but carried out in such a way, that the hypostatic distinction of the Son lost the clearness given it by Tertullian, and approximated in some measure to Sabellianism; though with the difference, that the distinctions in the divine essence were represented, not as originating in consequence of the creation of the world, but as immanent, eternal, and simultaneous. In order to fill up the gap between Tertullian and Dionysius, a man deserves mention, who has been overlooked by recent writers on the History of Dogmas,—I mean Zeno, Bishop of Verona. The opinion, that the works attributed to him, and which were first published at Venice A.d. 1508 (Bibl. Max. PP. T. 3, 356 ff.), were either written by entirely different authors, or by a Zeno who flourished somewhat before Ambrosius (about A.d. 360), and was Bishop in Verona, is based on a letter addressed by Ambrosius to Bishop Syagrius in Verona, where he says (see Ambr. Opp. 5, 297) :—" Puellam (Indiciam) Zenonis sane t a: memoriae judicio probatam ejusque sanctificatam benedictione—in periculo reatus deducendam arbitrare." But this passage neither says that the nun was from Verona, nor that the Zeno who confirmed her was Bishop in Verona. On external grounds, little objection can be made to accepting the statement as true, that these works were written by a Bishop Zeno in Verona, who lived about the time of Origen and Cyprian, and under Gallienus; unless internal grounds are opposed thereto (compare Bibl. Max. 1. c. 357 ff.). But the portions which we shall here bring under consideration, contain a doctrine of the Trinity, such as could not have been sanctioned by the Church subsequently to the Council of Nicaea; and which indicates that their author most probably flourished between Tertullian or Hippolytus, and Dionysius of Rome. At the same time, the very decided originality and individuality of the writings, alone render them worthy of a more detailed consideration. In the first Homily on Genesis (1. c. 359a), the author speaks against the eternity of matter, and a duality of opposed principles, in terms similar to those employed by Dionysius of Alexandria (see above). God is rather the principle; out of Himself He gave to Himself the principle of being. This is our God, who has discriminated Himself into God: this the Father, who, in His abiding state (statu, which reminds one of Tertullian), in His entirety, duplicated Himself in the Son, in order not to rob Himself of anything. "Hie est Deus noster, qui se digessit in Deum, hie Pater, qui suo manente integro statu, totum se reciprocavit in Filium, ne quid sibimet derogaret. Denique alter in altero exultat, cum spiritus s. plenitudine una originali coaeternitate renitens. Quemadmodum, si dicere dignum est, duo maria quae in semet recumbunt, freto aestus alternos in nnam conferente connexa; quie licet sui proprietate, locis, vocabulisque discreta sint, tamen trini profundi vaporis (airoppolas) una virtus, una substantia, una est fluendi natura, nee potest incomprehensibilis communisque undae dividi magnitudo, et tamen utrunque (utrinque ?) commeando largiflua, utrisque propria, nulli privata. Etenim damnum patientur ubertatis et gratiae si adimatur (sc. id), quod uno eodemque aestu alterum ex altero decoratur." This obscure passage compares Father and Son to two seas, each of which exists for itself, but whose waters meet and combine in a strait. Each of the seas is something by itself; is distinguished from the other by its peculiar character, by place and by name; but neither is lessened by the existence of the other. Through the narrow channel, by which they are connected, both gain in fulness, being otherwise of the same substance; whereas both would be losers if the interchange were to cease, and they were deprived of the adornment they mutually owe to the meeting and blending of their waters. The Holy Ghost appears here to be described as the connecting link; but main stress is still laid on Father and Son. He speaks in a similar way in the third Homily:—" The Son is equal to the Father. He says, —The Father is in Me, and I am in the Father; one embraces the other (invicem se capit), with the Holy Spirit." The relation between the Father and the Son is treated with still greater speciality in the Homilies "de aeterna Dei generatione" (1. c. p. 386). If, on the one hand, what has been adduced is sufficient to show, that for the successive Trinity of Tertullian he had substituted a simultaneous one, and that, inasmuch as he transfers Tertullian's gradus, as simultaneous, into the status of the divine essence, which he conceived to consist of several centres, enjoying, notwithstanding their connection, an existence of their own, he had not witnessed the Sabellian controversies without profit; the latter passage betrays, on the other hand, a remarkable affinity with Tertullian. It is true, the Son is termed "Totus de toto," not merely "portio;" the Father brought forth in the Son another Self (pater in ipsum alium se genuit ex se) out of Himself, out of His ungenerated substance (ex innascibili (i.e., dyevv)jrcp) sua substantia); out of God, God is born—out of the unborn One, the only-begotten One. But he says also,—Before all the iEons, in the secret depths of His holy intelligence, in the counsel of His own mind, unsearchable and known only to Himself, the Father embraced the Son, not without love to Him, but without as yet revealing Him. Hom. 2:—" Out of the mouth of the eternal Father, who alone was acquainted with the secret of His own mind, proceeded the only-begotten Son, the noble guest of His heart (cordis ejus nobilis inquilinus), in order that the universe, which as yet did not exist, might be created. Thence onwards, He became visible, because He was destined to visit the human race; though, in all other respects, He was equal to the Father." The third Homily says still more distinctly, that, prior to the creation of the world, the Father kept the Son hidden in His own consciousness (nescio qua sua conscientia velatum), and embraced, not indeed without love, but without as yet fully distinguishing Him from Himself (non sine affectu, sed sine discrimine). In order, however, to the realization of the order of things which had been devised, that unutterable power and incomprehensible wisdom thrust forth the Word out of His heart. Then Omnipotence propagated itself: out of God was born God, who possesses in Himself all that the Father is, and has,—not, however, withdrawing anything from the Father, for that which is the Son's is the Father's, and that which belongs to the Father belongs to both (excogitatarum ut ordinem instrueret rerum, ineffabilis illa Virtus, incomprehensibilisque Sapientia e regione cordis eructat verbum. Omnipotentia se propagat. De Deo nascitur Deus, totum Patres habens, nihil derogans Patri—quia, quod est Filii, Patris est, quod Patris, amborum). The Father rejoices in the other Self, which He has produced out of Himself (lsetatur Pater in alio se, quem genuit ex se). The mode of generation is inexplicable; but to suppose that He cannot be termed generated, who proceeded forth, is madness. For the Son limits Himself (temperat se), on behalf of nature; "ne aeternae majestatis dominum non possit mundi istius mediocritas sustinere." In these latter words, he seeks to guard against the appearance of bringing the eternal divine essence of the Son into too close proximity to the world; as would seem to be the case, if He first proceeded forth from God as His Word, at the creation of the world. It is unmistakeable, however, that he represents the Son as proceeding out of the heart of the Father, and His determinate "discrimen," as first taking place at the creaticn of the world; and the sole perceptible difference between Zeno and Tertullian is, that the former takes greater pains to make sure the full eternal deity of the Son in the Father (in corde Patris), the co-ordination of the Son with the Father after His procession to hypostatical existence, and, in general, the permanence and simultaneity of the Trinity. The position —that the Father has in the Son His other Self (alteram se), or Himself as an object—was further carried out, at a later period (in the fifth century), in the treatise appended to the works of Cyprian, entitled "De Sina et Zion adv. Jud.," after the following manner: "Salvator speculum Patris immaculatum, eo quod sanctus spiritus, Dei Filius geminatum se videat Pater in Filio et Filius in Patre, utrique se in se vident; ideo speculum immaculatum." We shall find similar language used, however, even by Athanasius and Hilary.

The principal momenta of the Christology of Zeno (if the sections which treat thereof be genuine; and in favour of their genuineness many things plead, although I should not like to assert it so confidently as in the case of the previous portions) are as follows. We must distinguish a double birth of the Son (as Tertullian and Hippolytus taught),—the first was without mother, the second without Father. In the womb of the Virgin He prepared for Himself a body (nothing is said regarding the soul). Out of love to His image, constricted into a child, God weeps (amore imaginis suae coactus in infantem vagit Deus). The Virgin comprised in herself Him whom the world and its greatness cannot comprise. Meanwhile, He threw aside His glory, but not His power. He whose eternity admits of no age, went through the different ages of man. He who confers eternity on the times, borrowed human life from time. Contrary to His consciousness, he suffered as a weak man, in order that immortality might become the portion of man, who was snatched away by the law of death. This passage reminds one of early Christian hymns. Somewhat Docetical in character is "de nat. Chr. hom. 2," where he tries to show, that if Mary were a virgin in conceiving, she must also have been a virgin in bringing forth (sine dolore, etc.). As God, He must have been able to be what He willed; accordingly, He became what He was not, but did not cease to be what he had previously been (Hom. 1, de nat. Chr.:—" Vultis scire in compendio veritatem? Factus est quod non erat: nee tamen desiit esse ante quod fuerat"). But we need not be surprised at these Docetical features; we know both from Hippolytus and Methodius, that they were not foreign to the time. For a long period after Origen, it was an universal custom to slight the soul of Christ; and where it is done, it is a sign of high antiquity- Nor, again, need we be surprised at the repudiation (hom. de nat. Chr. 1) of Ebionism, which teaches "Jesum Christum ab utero Mariae sumsisse principium, Deumque exinde ob justitiam factum esse, non natum;" of Subordinatianism, which does indeed term the Son of God, God, "sed non ex Patre nobilitatis perpetuitate progenitum, fuisseque tempus quando non fuit;" and of the "Judaea secta," which refuses to distinguish between Father and Son. For, as far as concerns the second in particular, we have certainly found the doctrine, that there was a time when the Son did not exist, both taught under various forms during the third century, and also expressly condemned by many teachers of the Church, for example, by Origen.

This is probably the most suitable place for devoting a word to some other men of the Latin Church;—for example, first to Arnobius and Minucius Felix, of whom the former at all events was an African, and both of whom nourished in the third century; then to Lactantius, who was a scholar of the former.

Arnobius endeavoured to demonstrate from the miracles of Christ, that He was not one from amongst us (adv. Gent. 1, 45 f.); but, on the contrary, because of the great gifts which He has brought us, deserves to be called God (1, 42). "Deus ille sublimis fuit, Deus radice ab intima, Deus ab incognitis regnis et ab omnium principe Deus sospitator est missus." "Ye say, it is true," he cries to the heathen, "Your God is dead." "But death is no disgrace; Socrates and others lost nothing by death; as little did their cause lose thereby. Moreover, the simple divine essence did not suffer when Christ died. If the Sybil, whom you believe to be filled with Apollo, were to be murdered by wicked robbers, would you say, 'Apollo was killed in her?' Death befell the man assumed by Him, not Him Himself; that which was borne, not the vehicle and bearer (mors gestaminis fuit, non gestantis). And even this He would not have had to endure, had there not been so great, so mysterious a work to be accomplished" (1, 62). The illustration of the Sybil might be taken to indicate that he regarded Christ as a mere prophet. But he also designates Him, ^u Deus radice ab intima," and in 1, 60, "vis invisibilis, habens nullam substautiam corporalem." So exalted, indeed, was He, that it was necessary for Him to throw around Himself a covering of dark matter, on which the eye might rest, and on which the gaze of dull contemplation might be fixed. Had he presented Himself on earth, in His "primogenita natura," who would have been able to behold Him? Wherefore He assumed the human form, and concealed His might under a cloak of resemblance to our race, in order that He might be seen, and might be able to execute all that for which He came into the world, in pursuance of the behest and commission of the Most High King. His Christ is so far from being a man, that he rather verges strongly towards Docetism; and he does not appear to have objected even to the expression—Christ was "homo simulatus" (1, 61). The real kernel of the "velamen" or " tegmen," that is, of His humanity, is His "primogenia natura." For this reason, he ascribes to the death of Christ, as the taking away of that "tegmen," the peculiar effect that He was now seen in His real essence, especially by the spirits, who were seized with terror when they discovered that He was God, whom they had esteemed to be one of us. (Exutus corpore, quod in exigua sui circumferebat parte, postquam videri se passus est, cujus esset aut magnitudinis sciri: novitate rerum exterrita universa mundi sunt elementa turbata, tellus mota contremuit, etc. Quid enim restabat, ut fieret, postquam Deus est cognitus is, qui esse jam dudum unus judicabatur e nobis? 1, 53.) He treats the work of Christ as consisting mainly in His doctrine of the true God, who cherishes the same feelings towards all alike, who neither punishes nor requires sacrifices; and in the exhibition, in His own person, of the divine longsuffering and tenderness. He was the Mediator of the revelation of God. The idea of the God-man had no constitutive significance for him; indeed, with his undeveloped system, he had scarcely arrived at the idea. Still, we may suppose without improbability, that he did not wish to appear before the heathen with all the mysteries of Christianity, and that he passed over the doctrine of the Trinity in particular, because the unity of God appeared to him to supply a peculiarly forcible argument in favour of Christianity against the heathen, —which argument he perhaps feared to shake by bringing forward the doctrine of the Trinity, especially as he may have felt incapable of fully grappling with the difficulties it presented. This, however, is a new proof that he had not penetrated very deeply into the soul of the doctrines of Christianity.—Still more meagre are the results arrived at from an examination of Minucius Felix. He says (Octavius, c. 20),—All philosophers of repute teach one God, even though under different names. So that everybody must believe, either that Christians are now philosophers, or that philosophers were already Christians. In his view, as in that of Arnobius, the principal and characteristic doctrines of Christianity are, the unity of God, His invisibility and omniscience, His providence, the end of the world, and the resurrection of the dead. Of Christ, he only says in passing (c. 29),—" To our religion you ascribe a guilty man, and reckon to him his cross. But you wander far from the truth, when you fancy that a guilty man could deserve, or an earthly being bring about, His own recognition as God (—^u erratis, qui putatis Deum credi aut meruisse noxium aut potuisse terrenum"). Still, these words imply, not merely that Christ was holy, but also that He was not of the earth, and for this cause He is believed in as God. "Woe to him," he goes on to say, "whose entire hope rests on a mortal man; all his help is lost, as soon as this man disappears." Neither Arnobius nor Minucius Felix allude to the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.

The peculiar, and as yet little considered, Christology of Lactantius, laid down in his "Institutiones," belongs properly to another place; but the traditional elements thereof, which are to a certain extent inconsistent with his own views, both in tone, form, and substance, bear a remarkable resemblance to that portion of Zeno's system which we have touched upon. I refer to what he says regarding the pre-existent higher essence of Christ. This is the more remarkable, as the doctrine of Christ's higher nature, contained in his Institutiones, though evidently emasculated, is out of harmony with his general views of things, could not be deduced from his premisses, and must therefore be regarded as fragments of an entirely different Vol. ir. N

system of the world. Lactantius becomes, on this very ground, a striking witness to the correctness of the view we have taken of the history of this dogma, prior to Arius. The Son of God, says he, proceeded forth from God for the creation of the world, as a word proceeds out of the mouth,—hypostatically, however, and not as "tacitus spiritus." This Son is also termed the Word of God, which the Greeks express still better by Logos, for Logos denotes both word and reason (1. c. 8, 9). He is very different from the other angels. "Quoniam spiritus et sermo diversis partibus proferuntur, spiritus naribus, ore sermo procedit, magna inter hunc Dei Filium ceterosque angelos differentia est. Eli enim ex Deo taciti spiritus exierunt, qui non ad doctrinam Dei tradendam sed ad ministerium creabantur. Ille vero, quum sit et ipse spiritus, tamen cum voce ac sono ex Dei ore processit, sicut verbum, ea scilicet ratione, quia voce ejus ad populum fuerat usurus, i.e., quod ille magister futurus esset doctrinaB dei et coelestis arcani ad homines perferendi." He is therefore God's spokesman, produced by God, in order that He might speak, "quod ipsum primo locutus est, ut per eum ipse ad nos loqueretur, et ille vocem Dei ac voluntatem nobis revelaret. Merito igitur Sermo et Verbum Dei dicitur: quia Deus procedentem de ore suo vocalem spiritum, quem non utero sed mente conceperat, inexcogitabili quadam majestatis suae virtute ac potentia in effigiem, quae proprio sensu ac sapientia vigeat, comprehendit." This "sensus" and "potentia" He derived from the Father (de Patre tanquam rivus de fonte traduxit). If his derivation of the " Sermo Dei" from God, for the purpose of the creation of the world and of revelation, fully warrants us in classing Lactantius amongst the teachers of the Western Church, particularly subsequent to Tertullian, he bears a special resemblance to Zeno, through the idea, which he repeatedly advances, of the "duplex nativitas" of Christ, the one for the creation of the world, the other for the incarnation; then a still closer resemblance, through his description of the first birth, which he says was "sine matre." In this connection he protests against the doctrine of Orpheus and Hermes, who represented the Son as the fruit of a sexual dualism in God, who is both avrorrcarcop and avrofirjrcop. Apuleius quotes, as a verse of Orpheus, the words, Zevs dparjv yevero, Zevs ap.fiporo<; eirXero vvfi&rj. At His first birth, on the. contrary, we should rather say that the Son was dfiryrmp, and in the second dirdrmp. Finally, Lactantius follows the example of the older writers, but specially of Zeno, in applying to the first birth of the Son the words, "eructavit cor meum verbum bonura;" and shows, in the above passage, how in his view the Son was at first concealed in the "mens Dei," and then was manifested through the speaking of God. All this sufficiently proves that he too believed in the equality of the essence of the pre-existent hypostasis of the Son with that of the Father. But Lactantius undoubtedly betrays also a strong retrogressive tendency. Wherever the Son is represented as proceeding forth from God for the creation of the world, and for the revelation of God in it, it is possible in itself that such a doctrinal system may end either in Sabellianism on the one hand, or in Arianism on the other; and such a vacillation we find .to have been characteristic of the Fathers between Tertullian and Origen. Nor was it possible for it to cease, so long as the various elements had not been separated, and the heterogeneous principles to which they alternately surrendered themselves had not been logically developed into opposed systems. The decisive appearance of Sabellianism in the third century led to a partial separation of the elements; and, as we see, even Lactantius very decidedly, though, it must be allowed, inconsistently, ranged himself under the banner of one party. In doing so, he repudiated very distinctly the Sabellian view, with its denial of an hypostasis, but at the same time inclined all the more decidedly to Subordinatianism. Zeno, on the contrary, endeavoured to nullify the subordination involved in the doctrine, that the Son first proceeded forth from God for the creation of the world, by teaching that He was previously an object of love in the heart of the Father, coetemal with God; but he fails to answer clearly the question, as to the relation between the eternal existence of the Son in the Father, and His production for the purpose of the creation of the world and of the incarnation. Dionysius of Rome, on the other hand, appears to have left the idea of the generation of the Son entirely aside, and to have contented himself solely with the eternal unity of the Son with the Father in distinction from Him, without more carefully inquiring into the mode of this being, or asking whether an eternal generation or production of the Son took place in God. Dionysius of Alexandria, like Zeno, finally arrives at a kind of duplication of the vov<; in the Father and the Son (Note 40).

Whatever other differences there may have heen between them, and whatever indefiniteness may have characterized their expositions, it is evident that this entire series of men, from the Eastern and Western Church, had certain fixed and invariable doctrinal views. They all clung to the essential equality of the Son and the Father, and to the distinction of the Son's preexistent hypostasis from that of the Father. But we find also various indications that the Church was gradually arriving at a more and more fixed doctrinal type, of this same general character. After the controversy between the two Dionysiuses, Sabellianism disappeared ever more completely from the scene; and in the following century was treated, both by Arians and orthodox, as a view already repudiated by the Church,—a circumstance which points back to the afore-mentioned Romish Synod. In opposition to Arianism, also, the later Church teachers appealed to this Synod. But the reaction which now set in against the system of Origen, especially against its subordinatian aspect, is particularly deserving of notice. This reaction was characterized, indeed, by many displeasing features, but strikingly demonstrates the correctness of what has just been said. The first and milder form of the polemic may be found, perhaps, at the close of the Confession of Faith adopted by the Synod of Antioch (Note 41). But a still more strong polemic was waged about the year 300. It is instructive to read, in the Apology of Pamphilus, the points of accusation against Origen, as they are the same which were brought forward even prior to the Arian controversy, and indicate very plainly what was at that time deemed necessary to orthodoxy in general. Inasmuch as Pamphilus does not say that the opponents of Origen were in error on these points, and required what was false, but endeavours rather to show that Origen had taught what they required; nay more, in that he grants that it would have been heresy in Origen to have taught the doctrines which his opponents attributed to him; this monument is the more interesting. Whether he was able to clear Origen of the charges, or whether Eusebius took part in the composition of the first book of the Apology or not, does not concern us in this connection. The work was certainly written between A.d. 307 and 309.

The first charge is, that Origen did not believe the Son to have been born, or begotten,—which does not mean that he recognised no distinction between the unbegotten Father and the Son, but, as the answer shows, that he did not hold the Son to be Son of God by nature; whereas he ought to have taught, that He was of the substance of the Father, and of a different nature from the creature.¹ The second charge was that of representing the Son as having arrived at subsistence by irpofioXrj, after the manner of Valentinus. The third charge was, that he refused to designate Christ God, and made Him a mere man. The fourth charge was, treating the history of Christ docetically. The fifth, teaching two Christs. In connection with this latter point, special remark is deserved by the hint that the giving great pi^-ominence to the human soul of Christ seemed to many to be equivalent to teaching two Christs, and was, therefore, a cause of offence. "Si quis sane offcnditur, quod dixit, Salvatorem etiam animam suscepisse, nihil de hoc amplius respondendum puto, nisi quod hujus sententiae non Origenes auctor est, sed ipsa sancta scriptura, etc.;—from which we see clearly how very far the completeness of the human aspect of the Person of Christ was lost to the view of the Church, in consequence of the prominence given to the doctrine of His higher nature. We shall have occasion to make the same remark respecting Athanasius, at the beginning of his career.

Another very important source of information concerning the character of the general views of the Church during the second half of the third century, are the two Synods of Antioch, convened in the years 265 and 270, for the purpose of judging Paul of Samosata (Note 42). Their decrees, although they undoubtedly lacked a strictly doctrinal form, and had rather an exegetical character, were recognised as orthodox by later Synods.

¹ Pamphilus adduces, in reply, a number of passages, in which the Son is described as Light of Light; as Love from God, who is Love; as an outflow from God; nay more, as cfiooiatos with the Father. The latter probably originated with Uufinus, though we have found that, on a subsequent occasion, Dionysius of Alexandria, when he was required to use this term, showed himself ready to do so. But that, in the main, the translation of Rufinus gives a correct impression of the work of Pamphilus and Eusebius, is evident from Jerome's charge against it, of containing the poison of . anism. Compare the Introduction to this treatise in de la Rue's ed.

We find in them a strong predominance given to the Father over the Son, for example, at the very outset; and other words and turns of expression are employed, which would probably have been avoided subsequently to the Council of Nice. The Confession runs as follows:—" We believe that God, to wit, the Father, is unbegotten, One, without beginning, invisible," etc. "Through the revelation of His beloved Son, we receive a knowledge of Him, though it is imperfect, owing to our weakness." "The Son is yewrjrbs," it goes on to say, "the only-begotten Son, the image of the invisible Father, the firstborn of creation, the Wisdom and Logos and Power of God, who existed before the .ZEons, not merely in the divine foreknowledge (irpoyvdxrei), but we confess and proclaim Him, as we have learnt from the Old and New Testaments, as God, both in His essence and in His hypostasis (ovala ical imoardaei)} Whoso denies that the Son of God existed before the foundation of the world, and maintains that this is to teach two Gods, him we regard as estranged from the canon of the Church; and all the communities of the Church General are of the like opinion (roirrov aXkorpiov Tov eicickrjaiaariicov Kavovos f)yovfieOa, Kcu iraaai ai KaBoXiKal eicicXrjaicu avfi<f>ci>vovaiv rjfuv)* Concerning Him who was always with the Father (aiiv r& 'rrarpl del ovra), we believe, that He accomplished the Father's will in the creation of the universe. Through Him the Father created all things, not as through an instrument, nor as through an impersonal wisdom (0i% a>? 8V opydvov ovS^' to? St' eiri<mjfirj<; dvmrocrrdrov); for, when the Father begat the Son, He begat a living, personal energy (io? tjuxrav evepyeiav ical iwirocrrarov). He appeared to Abraham, conversed with the patriarchs, now as an angel, now as the Lord, now as God.

^] Judging from the context, ovati?, as the antithesis to ^poymwet, will refer to the reality of the pre-existence. At a later period, the Arians frequently adopted the above Confession as their own, possibly for the very reason that it corresponded to the requirements of the Fathers of Antioch.

8 The Oriental bishops sent the Epistola Synodica to which this Confession was annexed to the Western Church, to Dionysius of Rome, to the Alexandrian Church, and, indeed, to all bishops, presbyters, and deacons, xurd riS» oUovfcitn» (Euseb. 1. c. 7, SO init.).

But we say also, that the law was given to Moses by the intervention of the Son as we have received and held it from the beginning, which has been handed down to us, and is preserved in the Holy Catholic Church to the present day, which has come to us in an unbroken line from the holy Apostles, who were eye-witnesses and servants of the Word."

¹ As everything which relates to the hypostatical pre-existence of the Son was directed primarily, indeed, against Paul,—naturally, however, against Monarchianism in general, and, therefore, against Sabellius also,—so should I be inclined to see in this very emphatic mention of the share taken by the Son in the law, an allusion to the Sabellians, with whom the Orientals must certainly have become acquainted after, if not before, the controversy between the two Dionysiuses. For the Sabellians ascribed legislation to the Father, whereas they excluded the Son entirely from the Old Testament.

* Then follow the passages, Lamentations iv. 20; 2 Cor. iii. 17; 1 Cor. x. 4, 9; Heb. xi. 26; 1 Peter i. 10 f.; 1 Cor. i. 24. E/ li Xpiuro_s 0tov

i»vxfiis xxi Qtov soQix, irpo uluuuv lori», Ostui xxl Xxi6 ~S.pi<nos i» xxl To xino uv T5 t»aix. e/ xxl r<* fixhurrx iroKhxis ijritoixts iiritotnxi. Not a word is spoken concerning the soul, which, after the time of Apollinaris, would be quite unintelligible.

By this act of the Church, Ebionism, in its higher Hellenic form also was shut out (a circumstance which, as we shall see, was not without an important bearing on the Arian controversies); and if to this end it was necessary to confess the pre-existence of the hypostasis of the Son, Sabellianism also was excluded; and if, finally, the real motive for the rejection of Paul of Samosata was the conviction, that the full conception of Christianity requires us to acknowledge that the Deity appeared in the Son in a personal form, and was not a mere power; if, accordingly, the doctrine of the Son's pre-mundane generation out of the Father were taught, and these two points —that is, the pre-existence of the hypostasis and the generation out of the Father—were developed into, and summed up in, the determinate doctrine of the eternal existence of the hypostasis of the Son with the Father,—we may see very clearly what direction the stream of Church thought was taking, towards the end of the third century. It is the direction which resulted, by an internal necessity, from the course pursued by the preceding history, from its ever fuller and clearer development of doctrine, no less than from the inner, ever-present principle which gave the impulse. The position of the Arians was that of men who are born out of due time; or, to adopt another image, they resembled stagnant, or even receding waters; for, just as the Church, in consequence of the favourable political position in which it was placed, quitted its earlier career—a career rich in conflict, and therefore rich in vitality—and entered on the easy and open, but also flat plain; and further, when, in consequence thereof, the vital power by which the Church should work up, purge, and appropriate the ante-Christian elements, ceased, at all events, for the moment to bear any proportion to the masses of the heathen world which now pressed into it, the Arians stood still. At this point, however, our attention must be directed to a new aspect of the matter.

As early as the second half of the third century, we find within the Church itself, independently of the heathens who pressed rapidly into it, a dangerous mixture with the world, and a suspicious attention to externals, to power and mere numbers, even at the cost of inner truth; and, finally, an intimacy with heathen philosophy, without the vigour necessary to its transformation, which necessarily reacted corruptingly on the Christian mind, and sapped the energy of the conscience of Christian science in relation to its subject-matter, that is, faith.¹

These external considerations alone, prove that the storm which burst at the commencement of the fourth century was not sudden and unprepared. On the historian, however, devolves the further task of showing that the possibility of even the great Arian movement was grounded in the doctrinal condition of a previous age, and that, agreeably to a higher order, it was both necessary to, and exerted a wholesome influence on, the development of doctrine in the Church.

To this subject the introduction to the next section will be devoted, where we shall find the doctrinal materials of the great conflict; that is, both the weaknesses and defects of the dogma, in the form to which we have seen it grow; and the frequent inclinations to subordinatian and Arian representations, on the part of the world of cultivated laymen,—inclinations which necessarily assumed greater power in the Church the more it endeavoured to stand forth in a worldly shape and form.

¹ Let us call to mind Paul of Samosata (Euseb. H. E. 7, 30), whose part even Lucian the martyr is said to have taken; the claims of the Romish bishops, which rose with every new success; the commencing pomp and externality of the Cultus; the opposition already necessary to be raised against the worship of jnartyrs (for example, under Commodian); the impurity of the view taken of marriage and celibacy; the beginnings of monasticism—a fleeing from the world which only a feeble Christian consciousness could regard as identical with the denial of the world required by Christianity, whilst it really served, along with that other, to make the Church hierarchical, that is, to give it a worldly form, whilst preserving the appearance of Christianity; and, finally, let us call to mind how frequently men highly esteemed in the Church were styled Rhetors and Sophists—titles by no means so unobjectionable as that of Philosopher, used in the second century.

CHAPTER SECOND.

ARIUS AND HIS FORERUNNERS.

What led so many even of the cultivated into the Church, from the end of the third century onwards, and from the time of Constantine the Great, was not so much an universally diffused and deeper conviction of the need of redemption and the necessity for a redeemer other than man, as the total decomposition of Heathenism, brought about by philosophy or illuminatism and by Christianity. As compared with Polytheism and its superstition, Christianity was the religion of Monotheism; and it was distinguished from Judaism by its universalism. It was recognised, therefore, as the true religion, and as fitted to give life and reality to the final conclusion at which heathen philosophy had arrived, to wit, the unity of God, and to secure for it a place amongst the convictions of mankind as a whole. In which connection, it was not forgotten that the merely negative universalism at which the heathen world had arrived, after the annihilation of its national gods, was converted by Christianity into a positive universalism. For the one God taught by Christianity, and the knowledge of whom it deems to be the true philosophy, is not a mere idea of the reason, but a living, watchful Providence, who reveals Himself for the whole of humanity, and thus satisfies not merely the intellect, but the religious impulse; which latter especially can be content with nothing short of the communication of God Himself. We can thus understand why Christianity took such immense strides, and why also it made extensive, in part, at the cost of intensive, progress.

The danger of taking a superficial view of Christianity, and the temptation to regard the development of doctrine hitherto considered, as a secondary matter, and the living Monotheism of Christianity, on the contraiy, as the main matter, could only have been easily evaded in one way,—to wit, by connecting the doctrine of the Person of Christ with a more fully developed doctrine of His work and office, and thus giving the former a greater hold on the mind. This, however, presupposed a deeper estimate of the doctrines of anthropology, and of the state of sin and grace, for which the time had not yet come. Those who were truly animated by the spirit of the Church devoted their best powers to the subject of the Trinity, and had therewith enough to do. Did not the foundation-stone need first to be laid ?—what Christianity is in itself objectively, first to be ascertained? So long as the reason why Christ ought to be regarded as the Son of God, in an hypostatical form, and why, because of the appearance of Christ, the old Monotheism should be so boldly cast aside, was as imperfectly understood as it was at first; many Christians, specially of the just-mentioned monotheistic sort, were necessarily driven to regard it as an useless expenditure of pains on the part of God, to appear, as the creeds of the Church maintained, in the hypostasis of the Son in Christ; and to such a feeling neither the Scriptures nor the tradition of the Church could furnish a sufficient counterpoise, where the religious impulse, whose cry is for a marriage of the perfect God with humanity, lacked vitality, and there had been no experience of the need of redemption. Precisely in this connection the circumstance must be considered, that the Eastern Church had taken a predominantly theoretical, the Western a predominantly practical turn; and that both had diverged in many respects from the true religious centre.

In the East, from the time of Origen onwards, theological science flourished ever more and more, but passed frequently over into a supernatural intellectualism, which laid chief stress on doctrine in general; and, as the character of this Church would lead us to expect, on the doctrine of God in particular. To regard Christ, however, merely as the teacher, the revealer of God, is, at the very outset, to make Him a mere organ and means, and not a constitutive element, of that which is to be revealed. His person, and therefore the Trinity also, could not then be regarded as forming part of the contents of His doctrine, as He would rather be the mere "principium cognoscendi," or the formal principle. To this conclusion, too, many actually arrived, both Arians and Sabellians. Furthermore, the theology of the Eastern Church had not yet freed itself from the abstract conception of God, taught by Hellenic philosophy, as we see most plainly from the circumstance that aseity was attributed, not to the entire trinitarian God, but to one hypostasis; the consequence of which was, that this hypostasis was inevitably put into the position either of the Most High God, or of the entire God, and a constant vacillation between Subordinatianism and Sabellianism. It is particularly deserving of remark in this connection, that the Church teachers of the fourth century very frequently appeal to Philo, to Porphyry, to Plotinus, to Amelius, to Numenius, and other NeoPlatonists; and believed that they could find the Christian conception of God in an almost pure state in the writings of these men, who, in consequence of the Christian influences under which they had lived, had constructed a kind of doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is the *Ov, the atnov, etc. This *Ov, which is the Father, was probably the ultimate foundation of the Subordinatianism from which the Eastern Church found such difficulty in freeing itself, notwithstanding the evident incompatibility thereof with its religious convictions. We need scarcelyremark, that such an intellectualism as this could not possibly ensure to Christ an eternal significance, nor indeed assign to His humanity in general a sure place, but always necessarily inclined to seek a one-sided support in the Logos; nor, lastly, that there invariably slumbered behind it a superficial view of sin, a notion that it could be overcome by higher enlightenment. Indeed, there is no doubt that this intellectualism, with its disregard of anthropology, of the doctrine of sin, and of the work of Christ, was already Pelagianistic at the bottom.

The Western Church, on the contrary, was stirred by a spirit of a more practical or ethical kind. It very quickly saw the change in the position occupied by Christianity in the world, and understood how to make use thereof; accordingly, instead of taking up a negative position, or theoretically isolating itself, the Church set itself the task of morally transforming the world by means of Christianity. This powerful moral impulse was embodied in the Western representative of Montanism, Tertullian, but propagated itself from him in Novatian, Cyprian, in Arnobius, Minucius Felix, and Lactantius, the last mentioned of whom incorporated a kind of ethics with his Institutions. At a later period, Ambrose and Augustine intensified this tendency in the direction of religion; Pelagius made it more superficial.

I. Lactantius.

At the period now under review, when, although the Western Church was stirred by the practical impulse just described, at the same time the consciousness of the need of redemption and of the power of sin was still undeveloped, the significance of the Person of Christ was limited principally to a reference to the will. He appeared in order to bring about right action. Now, it is self-evident that, if Christ came merely to be a teacher and example of virtue, the Church was at very useless pains in bringing forward its doctrine of the Trinity. At this point, however, the idea of the ethical incarnation of God, which required to be included as a momentum of Christology, was brought forward for the first time in a more developed shape. Nor need we be much surprised to find that Lactantius, who represented this aspect in a vigorous and original manner, did not succeed very well in combining it with the Trinity. We shall have occasion, however, to recognise that the tendency in the Church to assert the identity of the essence of the Son with that of the Father, must have been very strong, when it forced from Lactantius, with his one-sided ethical fundamental views, such a Christology, however defective its form.

In the view of Lactantius, the ethical constitutes the central feature of Christianity. The vigour of his moral consciousness expresses itself in a remarkable manner, and in glaring contrast with most of the Oriental Fathers, in his work "De via Dei;" especially also in his Christology. "He bade His only-begotten Son," says he (Instit. 4,11),"the Creator of the world (opificem), His counsellor, descend from heaven, in order that He might carry the holy religion of God to the nations of the heathen, and might teach them the righteousness which a faithless people had cast away." Here, indeed, he places religion and ethics alongside of each other; but, as is well known, he derives "religio" from "religare" (4, 28), and, accordingly, gives to the ethical element even in religion the decided predominance. Christ he terms, therefore, "Magister, doctor virtutis (4, 11), doctor, praeceptor justitiae" (4, 10, 13, 23, 24, 25). He does not understand this, however, merely of His words:—the Son was sent to be the "viva praesensque lex," so different from the Old Testament law, that Moses, the lawgiver, was himself obliged to prophesy His coming (4, 17, 25). He is the bringer in of a new law. No one, since the foundation of the world, was like Christ, who taught wisdom by His word, and confirmed His doctrine by the presence of His virtue (c. 23). But why was it necessary for such a teacher to come from heaven 1 In order that henceforth there might be no longer a difference between earthly and heavenly. Here he leans for support on his supernaturalism. "In homine interna et propria doctrina nullo pacto esse potest." The spirit which is shut up in the body, and its perishable nature, cannot by itself understand and lay hold of the truth, if it do not learn it elsewhere. The pure knowledge of virtue must therefore come from above. But why would not an earthly teacher (terrenus doctor), to whom the good had been revealed, have sufficed? Because it did not depend merely on the teaching, but also on the representation, of virtue, and because the former, without the latter, is an imperfect and inoperative thing. An earthly teacher could not be perfect; for, even if we were to conceive him in possession of a pure knowledge of the good, he could neither grasp the highest virtue, nor resist all sins, the incitement to which lies in the body. On the contrary, the heavenly teacher, whom His deity made partaker of wisdom, and His immortality of virtue, must needs be perfect, both in His doctrine and in all things. Accordingly, it is not merely necessary for the right teacher of virtue to come down from God; but he alone is the true teacher, who personally embodies the good, or who is the living and present law. He is thus led by the ethical to the recognition of the necessity of the incarnation, to the idea of the incarnation of the law. God must become man in order to realize righteousness on earth. On this thought he dwells with peculiar fondness, and by its means was able to give an explanation even of the exinanition and the death of Christ. "It has often been denied," says he (c. 22), "that anything can be taken away from an immortal nature, and that incarnation, the burden of the flesh and its sufferings, could be either worthy of or necessary for God. For surely it must be easy enough for Him to show Himself to men, and to teach them righteousness, without assuming the weakness of the body; nay, indeed, with the better result if He showed Himself as God. For if the power and might of the commanding God had approached to men, all would have rendered obedience. Why, then, did He come, not as God, but poor and lowly, so that He was despised and punished by men 1 Why did He not warn the men who sought to lay hands on Him away, by His power, or escape from them by His deity? Why did He not reveal His majesty, at all events, in the article of death!" All these objections, says he, I will carefully examine and refute, that every one will not merely cease to wonder that God should be crucified, but will see clearly that Christ could not have been believed in as God had not that happened which some blame.

He who gives a command must himself observe it; otherwise, it has no force. For if that which is commanded is good in itself, the lawgiver must not separate himself from the number and fellowship of the rest of men; on the contrary, he must himself live as he teaches other men to live. Only on condition that he who commands, puts himself on a level with him who is commanded, is the freedom of the latter ensured to him. Then the latter is free in obeying; if, however, he who commands, does not submit to the law which he imposes on others, and lives otherwise than as he commands, those who are commanded are not free in their obedience, and cannot be bound to render obedience. For this reason, it behoved God to subject Himself to His own law; and this He could only do, by becoming a man and living as we live. Now, for the first time, is our obligation complete. For now no one can any longer say,—' I am unable to do what Thou requirest; my nature is too weak. Thou forbiddest me anger, concupiscence, passion, the fear of pain and death, and yet it is against nature: or, if Thou supposest we can resist nature, show me how, that I may know.' What presumption to impose laws on a free man, which one does not obey oneself I Hence comes it, that no man obeys the laws of philosophers. Bather will I have examples than words; for to talk is easy, but to do, hard. Such excuses, which lead to our despising the teachers when they are men, and, when God is the teacher, lean for support on human weakness, are put to silence as soon as God subjects Himself to the law,—the condition whereof is His incarnation.

From this statement, we might, strictly speaking, draw the conclusion, that the incarnation was necessary to the ethical perfection of God Himself, to the full actuality of His ethical existence. This aspect of the matter he passes over lightly, and gives the greater prominence to the oeconomical (c. 24). "Without assuming a mortal body, God could not be a perfect teacher of righteousness. For if He came to men as God, He could not, even apart from the consideration that mortal eyes would be unable to bear the brightness of His majesty, as God teach virtue; for without body, He could not do what He had to teach, and therefore His doctrine would be imperfect. It is true, Thou sinnest not, one might have said to Him; but it is because Thou art free from this body of ours. Thou hast no desires, because, as an immortal, Thou hast no needs. I, on the contrary, need many things, for the support of this life of mine. Thou fearest not death, because it has no power over Thee. Thou despisest pain, because it can do Thee no harm. But I, a mortal, fear both; for both cause me pain. Such excuses the teacher of virtue must needs cut short; but he could only do so if he were able to say,—' What thou callest impossible, I do myself; therefore thy sin is not necessary, but is thy guilt. The flesh, concerning which thou sayest, To sin is essential to it, I also bear; and yet sin does not reign in me. Pain and death for righteousness' sake, which appear to thee unbearable because of the weakness of the flesh, has also its power in me; and that which thou fearest I conquer, in order to make thee also a victor over pain and death. I go before thee, through that which thou callest unbearable; canst thou not follow one who merely commands? so follow him who goes before thee as a leader.' Thou seest, therefore, how much more perfect a mortal teacher is than an immortal one; for the former can teach mortals, whereas the latter, not being himself subjected to suffering, cannot instruct in patience. I do not, however, say this in order to place man higher than God; but in order to show that a man cannot be a perfect teacher, if he is not at the same time God, and therefore able to impress upon others the necessity of obedience by heavenly authority: nor, on the other hand, can God be a perfect teacher, if he do not clothe Himself in a human body, in order, by carrying out His words into action, to shut up all others under the necessity of obedience. The leader to life, the teacher of righteousness, must have a body; otherwise it is impossible that His doctrine should be full and perfect, should have root and ground, should abide in and cling to men. He Himself must needs subject Himself to the weakness of the flesh and the body, and take up into Himself the virtue of which He is the teacher, in order that He might teach it both by word and deed" (c. 24).

In order, then, that virtue and the law might abide in us, be perfectly implanted in us, Lactantius supposes that it was necessary for it to assume a living shape, to become man; the good must suffer, virtue must become incarnate. But this living law, this living virtue, is Christ, God and man, as Mediator between the two. (Fuit ergo et Deus et homo, inter Deum atque hominem medius constitutus. Unde illum Graci Mealrrjv vocant: c. 25.)

One might still suppose that Christ, though conceived as the living law, as the personal embodiment of virtue, stood outside of us, even as did the law of Moses. He reminds us, however, that example has a very different effect from commands. It is a hand which draws us after itself (He is "praevius et manum porrigit secuturo," c. 24); it is an attraction and an incitement (incitamentum); first when the Lawgiver becomes man, does His law acquire perfectly obligatory force, and therefore its perfect power (c. 25). Through Him who is eternal, and as man also God, God has confirmed the eternal law (c. 17), and the law has gained an authority and force, which it would not have had if the Lawgiver had been a mere man. Men could not be compelled to righteousness by a merely human lawgiver, unless a higher power and authority were superadded (c. 25). But inasmuch as He is both God and man, necessity is laid on men to obey (that is, the law has acquired power to influence); not by any sort of violence, but by shame, and in such a way that freedom, rewards, and punishments remain;—the former, because it was still possible for them to disobey if they chose, in that He appeared, not in might and glory, but in lowliness; the latter, because they were able to obey if they would. Veiled in the flesh, He has shown that flesh also is able to lay hold on virtue (carnem posse capere virtutem). The Master of virtue became perfectly like men, in order, by His own victory over sin, to teach men that sin may be conquered by them (c. 24). A spirit without body could not conduct to immortality, for it is the flesh which prevents us men from following God; being earthly and mortal, it drags down the spirit which is united with VOL. II. o

it to the earth, and from immortality to death. For this reason the Mediator came, God in the flesh, in order that the flesh might follow Him, and that He might rescue man from death, to whose dominion the flesh is subject. In order that we might be able to resist the lusts of the flesh, God has opened up and shown us a way to overcome the flesh. The perfect and ideal virtue (omnibus numeris absoluta) confers on the victors the wreath and the reward of immortality (c. 25).

This ethical view of the Person of Christ, Lactantius then carries out in relation to His work. He by no means denies the outward miracles of Christ; on the contrary, he regards them as proofs of His higher nature; but still he takes particular delight in searching out their ethical significance. They are the types of much higher spiritual miracles: and so also have His sufferings a deep figurative meaning (c. 26). The heavenly power opened the eyes of the blind, and proclaimed by this deed, that, turned towards the nations which knew not God, it would illuminate the heart of the foolish with the light of wisdom, and open the eyes of their understanding to the contemplation of the truth. He unstopped the ears of the deaf; and thereby proclaimed, that those who knew not the truth would soon be able to hear and understand the words of God. He caused tongues to speak; for not until the tongue proclaims the power and majesty of God, does it come to its natural use, whereas previously it is dumb. In like manner He goes through the miracles of healing and the raisings of the dead. Not merely what He did, but also what He suffered, had a significance for the future, and announced that wisdom would be an object of hatred. The vinegar mixed with gall, which was given Him to drink, foreboded to His disciples bitter and hard experiences; for truth seems harsh and hateful to all who, not knowing virtue, spend their life in deadly lusts. And the crown of thorns which surrounded His head denoted that He would gather to Himself a divine people from amongst sinners. We, who were unrighteous, and were gathered together from amongst thorns, surround the sacred head of God; called by Him who is the Master and Lord of all living creatures, we surround Him like a wreath. He bore tortures, blows, and at last death, in order that, under Him as a leader, man might lead death, vanquished and bound with chains, as a captive in triumph. But this most shameful mode of death, to which the lowest alone are condemned, was inflicted on Him in order that He might bring help to the low and weak; in order that there might be none unable to imitate Him; and, further, in order that His body, which was destined to rise again the third day, might remain unmutilated. But, above all, because He was appointed to be lifted up, in order that His sufferings might be evident to all. And so, in His passion, He stretched wide His hands and embraced the world, in order even then to show that, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, a great people should be gathered together, out of all tongues and tribes, under His wings, to receive that highest and exalted sign on their foreheads (c. 26).

It cannot be denied that Lactantius thus struck a new and very remarkable chord; nor ought it to be objected, that the ethical method adopted by him leads only to a perfect man, but not to the incarnation of God. For he maintains that man cannot even know, much less set forth, the perfect good apart from God. And if, as he hints, the ethical perfection both of the law and of God requires that God also should realize virtue as a man, living amongst men; and if, further, the revelation of the good remains incomplete, so long as the heavenly and the earthly are not fully adjusted, until the former manifests itself completely in the latter; Lactantius had ground enough for teaching an incarnation in the strictest sense, especially as he must have been concerned to represent the love which manifested itself in the "viva praesensque lex," or "virtus," as the inmost essence of God.

This, however, he does not carry out: on the contrary, out of regard to his Monotheism, he glaringly contradicts the doctrine of the Church; at the same time, also, falling into inconsistency with himself. God he considers to be absolutely simple and indivisible (Inst. lib. i.). It is true, uncultivated people, such as misunderstand the Scriptures, are incautious, and weak in the faith, look upon Christ as a second God (4, 29). But He never called Himself God, in order that He might not be untrue to His mission of overthrowing Heathenism, as He would have been had He introduced in its place a new kind of Polytheism; and in order not to seek His own, and thus be guilty of falling away from God, who sent Him (4, 14). Lactantius could not indeed have held a mere man to be the living law, the personal virtue; for the flesh drags all to the earth, to sin, and to death, with the sole exception of Christ. In order that it might have no power over Him, He must be an unchangeable and perfect spirit, who merely assumed flesh for the purpose of vanquishing it, and who, to the end that He might be able to withstand its assaults, had been previously established in good. He thus arrives at the idea of a higher nature in Christ, which he even conceives as a pre-existent hypostasis; but his Monotheism prevents him admitting this hypostasis into the inner circle of the divine. We see from this connection that Lactantius ought properly to have represented Christ as assuming an humanity tainted with the sin of the race, in order that He might endure and overcome the temptations which we experience, and which, in his view, proceed from the body. And, in point of fact, he did not deem the significance of the supernatural birth of Christ to be its protecting Him from the sin of the race; but He must be born differently from other men, to the end it might be certain and plain that a heavenly spirit had become man, in the man Jesus. With the flesh which He bore, He took upon Himself sins,—not of course His own sins, for He had none, but the sins of the flesh; and the effect of His baptism was to wash out these sins, as in a spiritual bath (4, 15).

This higher, blessed spirit (beatus, 4, 8), although he is a spirit amongst others (ceteri angeli, 4, 8, 16), although he is a creature and belongs to the world (factus), is also very different from the rest. He was created before all, that He might be the Creator of the universe and the counsellor of God. When God was about to put His hand to this glorious work of creation, He brought forth an holy, incorruptible, and irreprehensible spirit (sanctum et incorruptibilem et irreprehensibilem spiritum genuit), whom He designated Son. And although He afterwards created innumerable other spirits through Him, whom we term angels, He deigned to confer the divine name on this first-born One alone, the Head of the angels (4,14), because in Him was the fulness of the Father's power and glory. His proper name no one knows, save He Himself; but it will be made manifest at the end of the days. Amongst men He is termed Christ, that is, King; not because of this earthly kingdom, for the taking possession of which the time is not yet come, but because of the heavenly and eternal kingdom. But as His origin from God was a peculiar one (see pp. 193 f.), out of the heart of God—for which reason, also, the words "gigni, generari," are applied to Him (c. 6, 8),—so also was His nature exalted. The personal Word of God, which He is, abides to all eternity; for power and wisdom flowed over from the Father into Him, as a stream from its source (c. 8). God having determined to send to men the perfect law and the teacher of virtue, He commanded the Son to subject Himself to a second birth. He entered, accordingly, into the pure womb of the Virgin, and clothed Himself with a human body. But because Christ came on earth, adorned with virtue and righteousness, nay more, because He was Himself virtue and righteousness, it was right (He deserved it from all peoples, for His virtue's sake) that He should be believed as God (4,16). For the sake of the virtue and faithfidness He displayed towards God on earth, the kingdom and the honour and the dominion were conferred upon Him, and all peoples and tribes and tongues shall serve Him, and His power is eternal, and His kingdom shall see no end. Even now He has power with those who honour His name, who confess His majesty, who follow His teachings, who imitate His virtue; but when He shall come again to judge all souls, and to restore the righteous to life, then will He truly become the Governor of the whole earth; and the golden age will begin (c. 12). In the eternal temple which He founds, He will be the eternal Priest (c. 14). Notwithstanding all the subordination, therefore, he places Him so high, as not merely to assign Him a thoroughly unique position in the universe; but even to see occasion for justifying Christians in asserting that they worship but one God, whilst at the same time they speak of two, to wit, of God the Father and God the Son (c. 29). When we speak thus, says he, we do not mean an entirely different one, nor do we separate the two (non diversum dicimus, nee utrumque secernimus); for neither the Father can be separated from the Son, nor the Son from the Father; indeed, God could not be termed Father without Son, nor could the Son have been generated (generari) without Father. Inasmuch, then, as the Father makes the Son (faciat), and the Son is made, both possess one common mind, one spirit, one substance (una utrique mens, unus spiritus, una substantia est). The former, however, is, as it were, the overflowing fountain (fons exuberans); the latter is the stream which flows out of it. "Me tanquam Sol," says he with Tertullian, "hie quasi radius a Sole porrectus." Because the Son is as dear as He is faithful to the most high Father, He is no more separated from Him than the stream is separate from its source, or the ray from the sun; for the water of the fountain is in the stream, and the light of the sun is in the ray. Even so, we cannot conceive the word without the mouth which gives utterance to it, nor the hand and power separated from the body. But all these names are given to the Son. And, though a father concede to his only and beloved son the title and authority of the master of the house, still the house continues one and the lord one. Father and Son, therefore, are one God. One is alone, free, the Most High God, without beginning (carens origine), in that lie Himself is the beginning of things, and in Him all things, even the Son, are included. And because the mind and will of the one is in that of the other, or, better, because one mind and will is in both (vel potius una mens et voluntas in utroque), both persons are justly termed the one God; for all that is in the Father flows over into the Son, and whatever the Son has He derives from the Father. Wherefore, also, the Most High and singular God (singularis Deus) can only be worshipped through the Son. Whoso honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father.

Lactantius thus approximates more closely to the doctrine of the Church, at the close of his treatise on Christ; for, in agreement with it, he recognises the equality of the essence of the Son with that of the Father, His hypostatical pre-existence, and His divine dignity. When, however, he denies that He is coeternal with the Father, who alone is without beginning, he contradicts his own assertion of the equality of the essence of the pre-existent hypostasis of the Son with that of the Father. He also, according to what was advanced in the preceding section, fell foul of the clearly indicated tendency of the Church subsequently to Origen; but, at the same time, he must be allowed to have been justified in entertaining the view he did, so long as teachers of the Church, like Zeno of Verona, maintained that the generation of the Son occurred simultaneously with the commencement of the world. For thus the generation of the Son and the creation of the world were brought into too close proximity. When, then, he modified this view of the Son, as originated prior to, and for the purpose of, the creation of the world, which was traditional in occidental Africa, by placing the Son in the series of mundane beings, and thus representing Him as a creature, even though the highest, he separated, indeed, elements which, though incompatible with each other, Tertullian had combined in his system; but fell, in consequence, into inconsistencies, and failed to meet the claims of his own ethical construction of Christology (see p. 210). Nor did he ward off the danger of Polytheism; for he gave to a creature the name of God, designated Father and Son the one God, and attributed to the Son equality of essence with the Father, in such a way as to give the idea of creation an ethnic and emanatistic colouring. Even at this point, it is clear enough that Monotheism, out of regard for which he adopted subordinatian views, is more completely secured when the Son is put on an equality with the Father, than when He is subordinated in any sense, at all satisfactory to the Christian mind. Indeed, Lactantius himself was at last compelled (c. 29), for the purpose of securing the unity of God, to recognise the equality of the Father and the Son (una mens, unus spiritus, una substantia).

By this doctrine of the pre-existent and created Son was his Christology also destined to be pressed; for it is incompatible both with a true humanity and a true self-abasement. The highest of the angels can naturally only assume a human husk, the body; otherwise, two complete, finite beings would be, as it were, incased in each other. Further, that higher spirit comes to the earth with virtue already perfect; and yet He is to be an example to men, and is to grow in virtue and be rewarded for it; whilst, at the same time, as an eternal spirit, He is unshakeable, and therefore in no danger whatever from the assaults of the flesh. That a being with such a nature bore merely an apparent resemblance to us, who possess a soul, and are through it exposed to temptations, could only have escaped the notice of Lactantius in consequence of a further fault of his, that, namely, of regarding the spirit of man as perfectly good and pure in itself, and of attributing evil entirely to the body. Herewith also are connected Pelagian principles, such as, the presupposition that, if we have the perfect image of virtue before us, our spirit is capable of the same virtue, and of vanquishing the flesh; which involves him in plain contradiction with the argument he had previously employed, that an earthly teacher could not be without sin, and that a higher power, a heavenly teacher, is therefore necessary to the exhibition of perfect virtue in the flesh. For, indeed, our moral power would be greater if He needed the indwelling of the Word, in order to set forth perfect virtue; whilst we, through simply beholding this representation, without the communication of His power, and even without having previously attained the forgiveness of sin by Him, are able to rise up to heaven. It is at this point we see that Lactantius must either attribute a higher significance to Christ, or the pains he is at to posit such a person as he does, are useless and without sufficient ground. The fault thereof, however, must by no means be sought in the stress he lays on the ethical, but in his inadequate conception of the ethical. His virtue is confined to secondary spheres; even the moral relation to God is not more carefully considered. Had he distinctly recognised the ethical to be the highest, as, in agreement with his entire tendency, he should have done, he would not have been able to call a secondary being the "lex viva," but the Most High God alone. Then the question arises,—Can a subordinate being bind us to unconditional obedience to the law in his own name? Or, can the arbitrariness which is not bound to the law find a place in God, when it can find no place in Him who is the living law? In that case, the ethical has in the last instance no hold, is based on caprice, and has its ground, not in the sphere of the absolute, but in that of the secondary. Had he conceived God Himself to be the living law, the appearance of the living law would have been, as the Church teaches, the appearance of God Himself, and the latter might have been shown to be an ethical necessity. Lactantius' strange doctrine of the "manus sinistra Dei," the Holy Spirit who takes part in the evil, the "interpretamentum boni," is a clear enough proof that he deemed it necessary to think God in false and fancied exaltation above the ethical. But to represent arbitrariness, caprice, as the highest in God, is simply the practical Occidental expression for the absolutely indeterminate *Ov of the East,—it was falling back into the physical. A similar regression was his making the body the seat of sin; in consequence, however, of failing to show completely that the ground of the ethical is in God Himself, and therefore of not recognising its absoluteness, he failed also to see that the ethical must root in fellowship with God, and in His real communication of Himself. Had he weighed this properly, he would have arrived, with his deeper view of the divine righteousness (de via Dei), at a clearer conviction of the necessity of the atonement, which is quite left out of sight, even in the beautiful remarks which he makes concerning the death of Christ. In this way, also, the significance of Christ the Mediator would have been heightened; and both for the sake of the atonement and of vital fellowship with God (necessary to be established even on account of the ethical alone), he would have been driven to see in Christ, not the presence of an exalted finite spirit, but of the Most High God Himself.

With all this, however, we must mention, to his praise, that he did not regard Christ as a mere organ of God, as a means in God's hand, as Sabellianism was compelled, and as Arianism was inclined, to do. In his view, Christ is an end in Himself, and that in a sense which does not hold of men or spirits in general; He is, namely, the object of divine worship together with the Father. He recognised it also as necessary to the perfection of the Son, that He should have fellowship with the Father, nay more, that He should be of one substance with the Father.

II. Eusebius of Ciesarea.

In casting a glance at the Eastern Church prior to the appearance of Arius on the scene, the system of Eusebius of Caesarea gives us the truest picture of the points which the then prevailing doctrine of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ had left unsettled, and which rendered it possible for many to continue vacillating between Subordinatianism and Sabellianism. He stands both near enough to, and far enough from, Arius and Athanasius, to show us plainly that the decision arrived at by the Council of Nicaea, in the case of Arius, could not but be adverse; and that, notwithstanding, the controversies which succeeded that decision were still a possibility. We learn from him, further, that the Church had arrived at a point at which it could not stand still, but must choose one or other of two courses,—either to take a step iu advance, and define the indefinite, or to go backwards either into Heathenism or into Judaism.

It has been matter of controversy for a long period, whether Eusebius should be reckoned orthodox after the Nicene standard, or be classed with the adherents of Arius.¹ In recent times, the Catholic Church has shown a decided inclination to the latter supposition; the former supposition has become almost traditional with investigators belonging to the Anglican Church.² German science, on the contrary, is pretty unanimous in the opinion, that neither of the two is the case.⁸ In fact, his doctrinal system is a chameleon-hued thing, a mirror of the unsolved problems of the Church of that age.

According to Eusebius, God is in His inmost essence one; only with an eye to the world, and God's relation to it, can we speak of a Trinity. To hold that the unity of God, or the Monas, expresses that which is inmost in God, and not that the unity is to be conceived as containing plurality within itself, appeared to him necessary, whether regard be had principally to the general, or to the distinctively Christian, idea of God. Inasmuch, namely, as God is the highest, and as this highest can only be one and not several; inasmuch, further, as there cannot be more than one uncreated being; contemplation, in its loftiest flights, arrives at the One. This One is exalted above all plurality, for plurality has place only in subordinate spheres; it is absolutely perfect in itself, self-sufficient, and is as far from needing, as it is from suffering itself, to be complemented by another.

¹ Amongst the ancients, Socrates, Theodoret, Gelasius Cyzic. pronounce him orthodox; Athanasius regarded him with a degree of suspicion; Epiphanius and Jerome treat him more harshly.

² For Arian, he is held by Petavius, Baronius, Montfaucon (Coll. Nov. T. I. xv.-xxix.), Clericus, and Mohler; for orthodox, by Montacutius, G. Bull, Cave (Hist. liter. Appendix, Diss. 3, pp. 193-206), and with a reference to the work of Eusebius on the Theophany, first edited by himself, Samuel Lee, in a longer treatise (pp. xxiv.-xcii.). Valesius, also, takes the favourable view of the case.

⁸ Martini, Eusebii Caesar. de divin. Christi sententia, 1795; Baur, Trinitat. 473 ff.; and specially Haenell, de Euseb. Caes. religionis christ. defensore," Gott. 1843, pp. 42 ff.

It lies out beyond all that has been created, because it is absolutely self-caused: for this reason, it cannot be compared with the world; and to attempt a comparison is godless. Therefore, also, is it the Unutterable, the Inexplicable, Being absolutely (to *ov), or the primal substance (17 -n,pmrrj Ovaia); it is aseity conceived as a person. In setting forth this (as he deemed it) exalted conception of God, Eusebius was quite aware of his accordance with the Neo-Platonists; but it did not seem at all objectionable, that the extra-Christian and the Christian idea of God should be identical. In its relation to all things lying outside of this unity, he designates the *Ov, apyrj dvapyos, the irpSnov Cutiov.¹ But as respects the Christian idea of God, it is universally allowed that even the Son is not self-caused, but is caused by the Father; and if the Son is generated, then the Father alone can be described as ungenerated. But as the Ungenerated is one and the same with the *Ov, the Christian expression "Father" is to be referred to the *Ov; and as that aseity, and the supreme unity involved therein, constitutes the proper essence of the Deity, deity can be predicated alone, "sensu eminenti," of the Father. He is the representative of the fiovapyla. If another, for example, the Son, were coeternal with the Father, we should have two eternals, or Polytheism (adv. Marcell. 2, 12).

By this line of argument, however, Eusebius meant rather to establish than to do away with the Trinity. As Polytheism is abhorrent to faith, the Christian mind could never acknowledge a Trinity if Father and Son were placed on exactly the same level. And if they be supposed to constitute together the one Eternal, we should arrive at Sabellianism. For, either both would be completely the same, and then every trace of a Trinity would be blotted out;² or if they constituted one, in the sense of one being the complement of the other, neither the Father nor the Son would be complete, neither would be entirely the one, by Himself, apart from the other.

¹ Compare Pnep. Evang. 11, 9, 16-19. Theoph. 2, 24. 27. 29.

² Adv. Marc. 2, 12 :—0 Ir i MxpxeAfcoj, tlnMs itho» thxt xini» Tow 0fo5 'hiyot, romiirriv Ayiwnrov, iro'Kh&xis uptauro, ov ovtopuv, Oti tl fiju hipov Toc 0tos To» Xiyot Qiaxil, S1t0 iarui dioix, 6 Ao'yof x«J 0 Qics xxl Ovk h Totxi oLpxn fitu. E/ li i» Xiyorro Atlio», To» xvri» opit^ifimos thxt To» ©to» T£ Xo'yp, yvfitin To»—2u|8iX?i(0» o'ftoAoyiIae/, vloirxropu ro» hu tlaxyu».

If, however, they need another element to constitute their being, neither of the two would be a perfect, self-sufficient hypostasis;¹ but the one must be reduced to the rank of divine irourrrjres, that is, become a predicate, and the other be recognised as the subject: in which case, the distinction can have no reality. Or the one will be accident, the other substance; or the one divine essence will be divided into several parts, which taken together constitute the Deity. In either of these cases, the hypostasis of the Son, which is universally recognised as necessary, would become an unreality; for the Christian mind is not satisfied that God should be in Christ as a mere power, or transitorily, but demands that He have a personal existence in Him.

Precisely, therefore, in order that a lofty and permanent significance may be attached to Christ, and that a Trinity may be possible, the Son must be regarded as something different from the Unbegotten One, who is the highest deity itself. He must be the Sevrepo<; 0eo?, in rank {rifirj) inferior to the Father; He is the Sevrepa ova la or inrocrracri s; the Father is to be conceived as existing prior to Him (irpovirapycov), not indeed in time—for before the creation of the world there was no time—but causatively: for the Father is the highest and ultimate Cutiov.² Both His being and the mode of His being the Son derives from the Father, and that through the medium of His will and purpose (yvdofirj, 'rrpoalpeais, fiovXtj).*

The idea of God, therefore, is complete, prior to and apart from the Trinity; the unity alone constitutes the full conception of God, and not the plurality with the unity; the ftovapyia is God, "sensu eminenti;" and the fiovapyla pertains to the Father alone. God's being a Trinity depends on His will. At the same time, this does not signify that God might be other than trinitarian, for it is impossible to God not to will the perfect.

¹ Demonstr. ev. 4, 3, ed. Paris, 1628, p. 148:—'O fiit xxff ixvri» rihcios xxl -spuros iis irxriip xxi rris rov vlov nvarxoius uhics, oiiih lis avfiVhnpuam rris ixvrov dtornros irxpx roy vlov Xxfifixvuv.

² Dem. ev. 4, 3 :—O it us e£ xlrlov (irurpis) ytyotus vios, iiirtpos ov iartv vios Xu0mtii«», ^xpx Tov irurpos xxi To eilixl xxX roiooit thxi tihnQus,

⁸ L. c. 'H ph xiyr i (this had been the favourite image of Origen; but it seemed insufficient to Eusebius, because of its physical, or even emanatistic character) oil xxrx irpoxiptai t rov (fxros 'exhxfiirii, xxrx ie Ti Tijj oiaixs ovfifit/Snxos Axjjpurro». 'O 8i vios xxrx ytufiw xxl irpoxiptam tlxuv v^iarn roii ^xrpos- HovhiiMs yxp 6 Qios yiyotm vlov irxrnp, xxl Qus Zivrtpov xxrx 'xxvrx ixvrif dQufioiofii»o», virtartioxro. He designates the Son also imfiiovpynfiu, upxntxrotnftx. Dem. Ev. 4, 2.

Indeed, Eusebius seems to have introduced volition and consciousness, simply in order that nothing in God might appear to be dominated by an unconscious being, by a mere natural necessity. The doctrine of the Church, also, really had this same end in view, when it connected the eternal self-causation of God with His self-love; with the difference, however, that Eusebius most decidedly represents the self-grounding of the Trinitarian God as a grounding of the Trinity by the Father;— the Father alone being the cause of Himself, the Son being grounded by the Father. In one aspect alone was Eusebius able to conceive the Son as eternally in God, and so, to a certain extent, to represent Him as a constitutive element of the entire conception of God. Namely, that which the divine will posits or generates must have already lain eternally in the understanding and will of God (potentia); above all is this true of the Son, who was spoken out of the heart of the Father, who is His manifested understanding and will. Eusebius, however, does not further lay stress on, or follow out, this idea of the eternal being, which the Son had whilst He was still entirely immanent in the Father, and, as it were, nothing but an attribute or quality of God Himself. That by itself would have seemed to him an approximation to Sabellianism, because it represented Christ as without hypostasis. He does not even term this eternal existence of the Son in the Father, His eternal generation.¹

But what necessity of reason was there for Eusebius actually positing a Trinity, when he believed the Father, therefore also the Supreme Deity, to be completely the Deity, even apart from the Trinity? To take this step, he was induced, partly by interest in Christianity, and partly by a regard to the world in general; and so far is he from being sparing in lofty predicates for the Son and Christ, that we are decidedly justified in saying that he does not teach subordination for its own sake; on the contrary, he willingly rose as high as seemed compatible with a due regard to the dyewryrov of the Father.

¹ Theodoret H. E. 1,12:—'Ea,iJ xul xpl» ivipyticf ytttntiiucii, ivrifiti n» it r$ irxrpi «-/eH(;iic, iWof zov Tcwpoj us xxX i3xaiXius de I, xxl soniipos xai ovjufiii T«»ret ovroj dil re xxl xxrx Tx «vt«, xxl uaxvrxs exfirros. The passage is not contained in Socrates; nor is it quite certain whether these words belong to Constantino or to Eusebius. That they fit into the system of Eusebius, although he could not have said, "There was a time when the Son existed in God alone," is clear from what has been advanced above. On the contrary, the mode in which Lee (1. c. L. not.) tries to reconcile the passage with Nicene orthodoxy, is unsatisfactory. For ivnifiti, as opposed to hif/ticf, signifies not power (Gewalt), but potentially (der Potenz nach).

The Father, or God, cannot communicate His being, that is, the ayewrjala; He is unapproachable; He cannot be in any respect compared with the world, and therefore cannot enter into any direct relation to it. From this it follows, that He, by Himself, could not be its Creator. He is too high to be a Creator; which, of course, implies that creation is too low for Him: it could not bear Him and His hand; it would be consumed (Dem. Evang. 4, 13). This shows us clearly enough, that the inmost being of God is conceived, not as Love, but as abstract infinitude. On this ground, a middle being is required, which is neither the Father nor the world; for if it were either the one or the other, it could not create. This middle being, even apart from the incarnation, is the Son (Dem. Evang. 4, 13); He is the Logos, who did not abide in God (evBov fiivav iv T)cnr)(aXpvrL T$ -Trarpl, adv. Marcell. 1,1), but came forth, and thus acquired an independent existence, became an hypostasis, which needed not another to complement it, although He needed the Father as the ground of His being. So far, indeed, from needing to be complemented, He is in Himself a separate and distinct totality. He is not to be counted part of God in the highest sense; for the principle of His being is in another. But as He is not God, so also is He not world; for He is endowed with all divine attributes,—with omnipotence, wisdom, and so forth, even as is the Father Himself. He was not merely not produced out of nothing (even the world, in the view of Eusebius, is not created out of nothing, but the divine will and the divine power supplied, as it were, the material), but He was begotten in an unique manner of God, Light of light (Dem. Ev. 4, 3); nor is He merely like, but really carries within Himself, the essence of God. Here also we meet again with the Origenistic distinction between God as subject and the divine predicates (S61-a). So far as the Father is the supreme divine subject, so far can the Son, of course, be termed God only figuratively, or in a derived sense; He bears this title, namely, in so far as, like God, He is One in Himself, and by His unique character sets forth the unity of God to the world; and as God in Himself, is the supreme principle of all, so He is the principle of the universe.¹ But if we look at the predicates, which in the wider sense appertain also to the essence of God (7txijpcofia Geov, or Tt)? "irarpiKrjs Oeorryros), and are frequently attributed thereto by Eusebius,—they themselves, and not merely their likeness, appertain to the Son. To describe the matter briefly,—the Son was a personal duplication of the mode of existence of the divine attributes, which themselves are of a divine essence; irrespective, however, of the divine subject, which as ar/ewryrov is incommunicable.¹ This is the sense of his favourite designation,—The Son is the Father's perfect image (Theol. Eccl. 1, 2, 1. c. pp. 61, 62; Dem. Ev. 4, 3); and hence, taken in the whole, he ought rather to be classed amongst the Tritheists, than amongst the Arians. The Son is not the original; nor is He a duplication of God in Himself; but the copy, that which is posited. He not merely has the characteristic features of the archetype, that is, the divine attributes in perfection, but is Himself living and hypostatical, and therein also similar or equal to the Father. For this reason, Eusebius could find no difficulty in attributing to the Son the same nature as to the Father, without thereby retracting anything of the ar/ewqala of the Father.

He would appear, therefore, to be the independent organ of God for the creation of the world—an organ which, like the Father, has life in itself, though, unlike the Father, not out of itself. He is the metaphysical, personal Mediator between God and the world, the bond which connects the world with the Uncreated One, and constitutes it capable and worthy of existence.²

¹ De eccl. theol. 1, 2 :—The Son is Son not merely through His earthly birth, but through His birth from God the Father, before all JCons, xu6' eI» To ir'hfipufADt rijf irurptxt)s ttvrnrH *«J uvrov vlov Qtov virtarjiaxro (compare Dem. Evang. 4, 3). He then goes on to say,—Ovk lliixrnro» xx.1 Tow irxrpis tlQxpiaftivo», oi3' duupxi» rmx Kxi xyitvvrrov, oioi uh"hodi» Tot* %/rnnt Kxi Tow irxrpos dXhvrpiu» 'Hfi'hxo^.itov ilirntx_t l£ xOrr,s oi rijs irxrpixiis fitrovtixs uairip Xto irnyns ix xinw irpoxeofii»ns irhnpovfiwov. For this reason, Eusebius designates the Son oswro'Xoyof, xvroooQlx, and even xiniitos; for although grounded by God, He has all this in Himself, as in a distinct and separate totality. He is rthiios d~o rrte/ow, etc.

^* As in Philo's system; but far more definitely hypostatical. See the Dem. Ev. 4, 5, 13.

He is its head and first-born, and through Him the world has its perfection: He is also the bond running through the universe, and as it were its soul: He is not, however, diffused through it, but hypostatically concentred in Himself. As the creative principle of the world, which comprises in itself the imitated fulness of the deity, He does not form a mere part of the world, but occupies in it an unique or specific position: by no means the position of a mere means; He is the highest personal good in the world, wherein consists its perfection. As the world is a fieya acofia, with many members, so must the Son also necessarily be one, its soul. In this respect also, He is the image of the Father, setting forth His fiovapyla (Dem. ev. 4, 5. 3; Eccl. Theol. 1, 2). We can only conceive of one most perfect thing amongst the many; and this most perfect thing is the Son, who is in all points as like, or equal, to the Father as is possible, unless we substitute identity for distinction, and thus adopt the Jewish error, which renounces the highest boon (yepas), to wit, that new view of the world which secures to it unity and goodness through its Mediator, in whom, as in its head, consists its perfection (compare the de eccl. theol. 1, 4; Dem. Ev. 4, 3. 5). But He is the personal, creative principle of the world; it follows, therefore, that as time first came into existence with the world, He could not have been begotten, that is, He could not first have attained an hypostatical existence outside of God, in time. He was begotten before all .ZEons, and is in so far wa^oi?, that is, without beginning in time, for He was begotten out of time. We see thus, that had it been necessary, he might have described the generation as eternal, though in a somewhat different sense from Origen's. He did not do so however; nor, further, does he ever style the Son owd&iios with the Father. Plainly in order to be able to give more decided prominence to the distinction between that which is cause and that which is effect, he avoids teaching the coeternality of the two, notwithstanding he also maintained the Son to be exalted above the world and time, and therefore rejected the position—" There was a time when the Son was not." He was able to say, and actually did say, The Son was always with the Father.¹

Dem. ev. 4, 3, p. 149 :—ra 7rurpl us vlo» hiu xx»ris avvirru.

He might even have consented to the use of the term awcdStov, on the understanding that the causal relation should be left untouched. For its integrity seemed to him better assured, when as it were an interval was left between the Father and the Son, by way of sensibly expressing the logical relation, about which he was really concerned. The difference between him and Origen, therefore, is the following:—For the doctrine of the eternal generation, and the principle that light is inconceivable without brightness, he substituted the idea of the untemporal generation before all ^Eons. He was not satisfied with the image employed by Origen, because, to teach that the procession of the Son was inevitable, seemed to him to be emanatistic, ethnic, unworthy of God; because brightness could be taken as a mere quality of light, that is, as a mere accident of the divine substance; in short, because the figure appeared to favour Sabellianism. Further reasons were—because it implied the hypostasis of the Father to be imperfect in itself, without the Son, even as light is not light without brightness; and lastly, because it did not express the ar/evirrjrov of the Father, which is to be conceived as irpoihroKeifievov.¹ On the other hand, however, he again exalts the Son, attributing to Him divine ovaia, more frequently, and in a more comprehensive manner, than Origen. Nay more, in relation to the first he says,— The idea of the Son is involved in that of the Father; the Son was always with the Father, and so forth: it is clear, therefore, on the whole, that he had no intention of forming a lower estimate of the Son than did Origen. The consequence of Eusebius giving, as it were, a sensuous stamp to the causal relation between the Father and the Son, was that he conceived the procession of the Son to have been effected by one single act of God, whereas Origen represents the generation as a continuous thing.

From the metaphysical position assigned to the Son relatively to the world, as its Mediator, it naturally follows, that He is the principle of all revelation, both of the general revelation (Dem. ev. 4, 6. 10. 13) and of the historical revelations made subsequently to the Fall. Even in Old Testament times He appeared in the form of a man (Dem. ev. 5, 11, p. 218); and rays of the Logos were in the prophets (Dem. ev. 4, 10: ^K/S/>aX«"« awT-tves of His light").

¹ Dem. ev. 4, 3. He prefers the image of ivxlix to that of light and its brightness; for tiuoiu proceeds forth from ointment, and forms an independent atmosphere, without diminution or division (Dem. ev. 4, 3).

But the entire Logos appeared under the New Testament, to heal humanity in its deeply sunken condition (Dem. ev. 4, 10). He appropriated a truly human body out of Mary, without therefore renouncing His indissoluble unity with the Father, or rendering Himself passible. The sun does not suffer, says he, after the example of Origen, when its rays shine on an impure place: the relation of the Logos to the humanity, appropriated by Him, was a purely active one; the relation of the humanity was a passive one,—it was the harp, the Logos was the player (Dem. ev. 4, 13). The death of Christ he views as a sacrifice, as a propitiation for our sins; and displayed, at this point in particular, the deep Christian interest he took in the incarnation of the Logos (Dem. ev. 4, 12). After His exaltation, His body was deified and swallowed up in deity; but neither His hypostasis nor His kingdom shall ever come to an end.

This idea of Christ, which existed prior to the Council of Nice,¹ was entertained, not by an isolated few, but by very many in the Church about A.d. 320 (Note 43). In agreement with the great body of the Church, he regarded it as equally certain with Monotheism itself, that the distinctively Christian, new element, that the highest element, is the reconcilement of God through God in Christ (Eccl. Theol. 1, 2); that the divine was given in Christ in a personal form; that thus the true view of the world was opened up to men—that view, namely, according to which, humanity, nay, even the world, is a great whole, one body, whose eternal Head is Christ, the Prophet, High Priest, and King (Dem. ev. 4, 4; adv. Marc. 1, 1). Although, then, his theory may be pronounced unsatisfactory, and fairly charged with curtailing the one or the other aspect, concerning himself we may say, that he did not design such a curtailment. On the contrary, his true and proper efforts were in harmony with the demands of the Church. The more, therefore, must he be content to be tested by the question, whether his theory aids in doing full justice to those bases, whose recognition he himself aimed at securing by its means; indeed, he himself demanded to be judged by this very standard. But of this, more hereafter.

¹ It is not quite accurate to regard this middle theory between Arius and Athanasius as the fruit of the conflict between the two men.

In the first instance, however, it must be acknowledged, on the one hand, that the dogmaticians of the Church of his day had not arrived at a fixed judgment concerning the chief points about which his theory was concerned; and, on the other hand, that his theory was closely connected with wide-spread representations: had this not been the case, Arius could not have found the support he did when he appeared. The Church advanced to the full understanding of the points referred to during the Arian controversy. The majority had no definite theory, and were compelled by the Arian struggles to enter for the first time on a deeper investigation of these questions. Indeed, this was precisely the blessing of the Arian controversy, that, owing to its profound inner significance, and to the Synods which it caused to be convened at so many different points of the Christian world, the collective powers of the Church were concentrated on this problem, and thus the dogmatic progress, which had become necessary, was realized. It is true, indeed, that even before the Church formally devoted itself to this dogmatical work (about A.d. 325), that Christian conscience or tact, which is immanent in faith, enabled it to decide on the character of Arian principles; and it did actually give its judgment. But this judgment had no scientific worth; its worth was simply and solely that of a confession of the common faith,—a character which it is necessary for a creed to possess. And scientific efforts, so far from being thereby rendered unnecessary, were thus supplied with a firm ground on which to stand. We can accordingly understand the apparently contradictory circumstances, that Arius should at first be so unanimously condemned by the great Synod of Nicaia; and yet that afterwards, not Arianism indeed, but still semi-Arianism, should for a time have held so influential a position in the Church.

III. Arius.

We do not give a complete and adequate description of Arius, when we merely say that his system gathered up and combined in itself everything of a subordinatian or lowering character relative to the Son, that had not been excluded by the preceding development of the Church: were this all, it would have been impossible for him to have made any great impression. His system owed its seductiveness to the circumstance, that the features of the kind just referred to, were dominated by an idea apparently favourable to a tendency to lay stress on the hypostasis of the Son, which had not only become an historical necessity, but was in itself completely justified; nay more, not merely to favour, but to give it for the first time fixity and substance. The almost hundred years' controversy with the various forms of Sabellianism had necessarily given rise to a tendency to attach greater importance to the hypostasis; and, as many even of the ancients saw, the athletic law of avOoXiaj (antagonism) exerted its influence on many of the Church teachers of this age. Sabellianism, which was simply a higher potence of Docetism, constantly threatened to reduce the incarnation of Christ—that is, in reality, the Christian religion—to a transitory phaenomenon. Nor could the conception of the reconciliation between God and man fail to be superficial, so long as the union of God and man in Christ was deemed momentary, or almost of the nature of a vision. Humanity cannot have been reconciled with God through Christ to its very roots; the reconciliation cannot become a certain truth and a permanent reality in us; unless a perfect man, and not a mere body, a mere human shell, were assumed by God, and unless this assumption penetrated to the inmost centre of the human personality. This point Sabellianism never reached; on the contrary, its efforts to attain to a true humanity necessarily ended in Ebionism. There was something dazzling in the great pains it took, relatively to the revelation in Christ; but the actual performance was so far from corresponding to the efforts put forth, that it would have been more satisfactory had some of the pains been spared, and, instead thereof, a more permanent and substantial result presented.

This is the reason why we have found the Church teachers, from Tertullian onwards, with few exceptions, far more favourably inclined to, at all events, some form of Subordinatianism, than many of the second century (for example, Irenaeus). These latter, on the contrary, were most concerned to assert the true deity of the Son, and therefore approximated more nearly to Monarchianism of the Sabellian kind, than did the teachers of the third century. But when Monarchianism went on definitely and systematically to repudiate that which the latter Church teachers had merely momentarily left in the background, the duty devolving on the Church, during the third century, no longer continued to be that of establishing the truth of the deity of Christ and His equality with the Father; for, during the second century, this had been clearly seen and established. Its work lay, on the contrary, so decidedly in the opposite direction, that for a time it was almost necessary to take regressive steps, in order to the attaining of a full apprehension of the problem awaiting solution. The new point to be gained was, the idea of the hypostasis of the higher nature of Christ; which was the only thing fitted to raise the Church above both Ebionism and Sabelliauism, above the category of divine power and that of divine substance, and to constitute the eternal and absolute significance of the Person of Christ and Christianity a matter of settled conviction. Consequently, the task devolving on the fourth century was, in the first instance, simply that of connecting the idea of hypostasis—which, after being toned down by Irenaeus and his successors, had been more carefully considered during the third century—with the ancient affirmation of the true deity of the Son. This, however, was just the most difficult task of all, requiring as it did both the transformation of the preceding, and the determination of the Christian, conception of God. Even in Nicaea no attempt was made to explain the mode of this conjunction, to conciliate the hypostasis of the Son with the unity of the divine essence: all that the Fathers there assembled did, was to declare that the hypostatic form of the higher nature of Christ, and the true deity thereof, are two points equally certain to faith; that the conjunction in question is immediately effected in, and should be confessed by, faith; for which reason, it is incumbent on Christian science to bring about the recognition of the union of the two, without detriment to either.

Shortly before Arius, we find that the zeal displayed by the teachers of the Church, in opposition to Sabellianism, and in the assertion of the reality and permanence of the hypostasis of the higher nature of Christ, was moderated by the controversy with Dionysius of Alexandria; and that they received a warning to avoid the onesidedness which forgets that the true path of the Church, in relation to doctrine, lies always between two errors. Clear tokens have shown to us, that from his day onwards there more and more frequently arose men, who, whilst adopting the doctrine of the essential equality of the Father and the Son from the Sabellians, and that of the hypostasis of the latter from the Subordinatians, set their faces, not merely against one or the other of these two parties, but against both (see Section Third, Chapter First). Even the school of Origen furnished its full share of men of this tendency (see Section Second, Chapter Third). But we have found also, that many, both in the West and in the East, were unable to maintain that the Son was of the like substance with God, and had an hypostasis, save on subordinatian principles. They either represented the Son as first proceeding forth from or begotten by God, for the creation of the world; or else as a middle being between God and the world. Contradictory as these transitional theories were in themselves, and certain as it was that they necessarily curtailed the equality of the essence of the Son with that of the Father, which they desired to uphold, their authors still clung to them, because, apart from such subordinatian elements, they feared having to surrender the hardly-won hypostasis of the Son, falling back into Sabellianism, with its denial of distinctions, and thus renewing the old struggles. These theories, therefore, and its own marked antagonism to the already repudiated Sabellianism, apart altogether from other matters, must have decidedly facilitated the introduction of Arianism; even as, on the other hand, after Arianism and Athanasianism had openly entered the lists against each other, it became possible for men like Eusebius to wear the favourable appearance of pursuing a middle course between two extremes. This appearance drew around them a great multitude of very agile but unsteady forces, which, affected by the struggles going on around, were forced to enter more deeply into the matter; and were unable to gain a firm footing, until they decidedly ranged themselves either on the side of Arius or on that of Athanasius.

After the controversy of Dionysius, the anti-subordinatian tendency attained to constantly greater predominance in the Alexandrian Church, although it was at first repressed by Origenistic traditions. About A.d. 270, Theognostus flourished there; and from A.D. 283 to A.d. 300, Pierius. A fragment is still extant of a lost work, entitled irepl Tjj? en-ifyfilas rov Xpurrov (in Greek, in A. Mai's Coll. Nov. 7, 306, 307, ell. 134), by Petrus, Bishop of Alexandria from A.d. 300 to 311, in which he teaches the identity of the nature of the Son with that of the Father. (Note 44.) Shortly after the death of Petrus, Alexander became Bishop of Alexandria. According to an account which is not thoroughly accredited, Arius was not merely a presbyter under him, but also the successor of Pierius as teacher at the school of Catechetes, and enjoyed the reputation of varied learning. He received his education, probably in company with Eusebius of Nicomedia, whom he designates IZvXKioviciavuTra, from Lucian in Antioch, amongst others. Personal considerations, and especially conceit, which manifests itself in his Thalia, may have partly influenced him in attacking Alexander and the growing anti-subordinatian tendency; but still there is no doubt that, even prior to the controversy, his point of view was different from his opponent's (Socr. H. E. i. 6; Epist. Alex.). Alexander reproached him with having concealed his opinions for a considerable period. In an association of presbyters, the Bishop had delivered a discourse on the Trinity, of whose contents all that we know (Socr. II. E. i. 5) is, that he set his face against a onesided tendency to the discrimination of the hypostases, and endeavoured to lead the mind back from the triplicity to the unity, seeking to point out the latter in the former (iv rpidSi fiovdSa elvai (piXoaocpcov i9eoXoyei). That to which we drew attention above, thus manifests itself at the very commencement of the controversy,—namely, either progress is made to the recognition of the full deity of the Son; or else a return is made from the anti-Sabellian momentum of hypostasis to the earlier one of the true deity of the Son, but under a higher form. That Alexander meant to give up the point which had been gained during the third century, to wit, the hypostasis of the higher nature of Christ, is not probable; but he appears to have taken the Trinity, as a thing already established, for his starting-point, and thence to have gone on to the unity of the hypostases. He would seem, therefore, to have laid hold of the problem, just as it had been set forth by Dionysius of Home. Arius believed that he saw Sabellianism therein, —without doubt, however, unjustly; for a Sabellian might well have joined with Arius in saying,—" There was a time when the Son was not." On the contrary, it is probable, inasmuch as Arius at once objected to Alexander,—el 6 irarrjp eyewsqae Tov vfov, dpyrpt virdp^eco<; e^et 6 yeuin)Oels, ica\ eic Tovtov BrjXov, on tjv ore Ovk tfv 6 v<o?,—that Alexander agreed with Arius in teaching the generation of the Son; but held that the generation should be conceived as eternal, on the ground that if the Logos and Wisdom were not coeternal with God, God must have been at one time aXoyos, dcrcxf>o<; (compare Socr. II. E. i. 6; compare Note 46; see Note 45); whereas Arms tried to show that the idea of generation, consequently of apyi), in the sense of principle, involves a beginning in time, or an "initium." In this matter he was undoubtedly very unlike the speculative Origen; but on that very ground more to the taste of common understandings, especially as he possessed considerable dialectical skill.¹

As Arius was unwilling to posit time as existing prior to the world, therefore also prior to the Son, the unscientific, clumsy phrase, rjv ore Ovk ijv, did not denote, in his hand, strictly what the words expressed, but something different, for which it was intended to prepare the way. It acquired its true meaning from the negation which it was intended to convey,—to wit, the Son is not coeternal with the Father.² The causal relation involves the priority of the cause to the effect. In this way, however, the cause, God, would be placed in time, in order that the Son might be placed in time.

¹ After Athanasius, however, he shrunk from entirely following the common understanding of men, and supposing time to have been even before the existence of a world: hence he avoided saying, ri» xpo»os, ore oix sjv, and left out xp^'s; and yet he went on to argue as though he had used xpovof- What he really aimed at showing was, that the idea and being of the Father do not necessarily involve the idea and being of the Son, but that the Son, in relation to the Father, is something accidental.

* Epiph. Haer. 69, 6, from the letter addressed by Arius to Eusebius:— "We are persecuted, because we say—The Son had an dpx*i" Here also there is again the same amphiboly. In the Ep. ad Alex. ib. 7, and Ath. de

Syn. 16, we read :—'O fieo Qt&g ufrios ru» T«»to» rvyxxvu», eoriv x*xoxae fiovcoruros. O oi v/of, dxpovus yitvndels ('iro rov irxrpos xxl irpo uiuuuv xrwitls xxl itfii'hiuitls, oix i)u irpo roi yinrfavau, dXh dxpo»us ^po irxvruv ytntyitls, fiivos Vto rov irxrpis iiriam. Oiie yxp iori t ai'3/oj, ij uv»x'i'oio;, q ovvxyittnros r$ irurpi' oiie ufiu r$ iruro) To elvxi ixⁱⁱi *K rims Alyovov T* irpos «, 2ko dyty»iirovs dpx&s tlatiyovfitvoi, d>.7C xs fio»dr xxl upx*l irurru; ovruf 6 ©eoy */i '(RW iorif iii xxl Too Tow vtov iorlv, us xxl irupoL aov fiefixinxxfiet, xx.rx. fiion» rr,» exxh,wixv xnpv%utrof. To Eusebius, indeed, he wrote in a different tone regarding Alexander. The latter probably assigned to the Father the pre-eminence of the principle, but he can scarcely have designated Him the Monas.

Instead, therefore, of being unlike each other, both would be alike, in so far as the one is as truly bound by the conditions of time as the other. In order, therefore, to bring out the wished-for subordination, he was compelled to go back to the law of causation, and out of its different forms to select the one which most distinctly involved the subordination of the Son. A cause may be either onesided or reciprocal; that is, the action may be either all on one side, or each may act in turn. It may be essential and necessary to a cause, to pass into action; indeed, it is possible for it to be so necessary, that the cause would not merely not be a cause, but would have no existence at all, if it did not act: or the effect may not arise necessarily from the essence of the cause, but be dependent on something, which may either exist or not exist without detriment to the cause;—it may depend, for example, on a free act of will; in which latter case, the effect would owe its rise to something accidental and indifferent to the essence of the cause, and would consequently be itself fortuitous, contingent. Finally, the effect may be something equal or similar to the cause and its essence, or something foreign and disparate;—the latter, when the causative energy does not flow naturally and necessarily out of the essence of the cause, but waits for an external, that is, a fortuitous impulse. Arius does not enter on an investigation of these different forms of the causal relation with a view to ascertaining which is applicable to the case in question, but selects the one that suits him best,— that which first suggests itself to superficial thinking. God (the Father) is the atrcov, the Cause absolutely; besides Him there is only the Nothing. Out of Himself, He could not produce the Son; for that would make the Son either a Valentinian 7rpo/3oX^, or a portion of God, having the like essence with Him (Manichaean); and the unity of God would be rent asunder after a Sabellian fashion, as was done by Hierakas (Note 46). Inasmuch, therefore, as there was no eternal matter, God must have called the Son into existence out of nothing.¹ From which it follows further, that because He cannot be of the substance of God, He was created by the Will of God (OeKrjf/Mrl. Qeov KricrOevra).

¹ Ep. ad Euseb.:—" We say this (that the Son is i? ovx Strut), because He is neither a part of God, nor formed from previously existing material."<

On these two principles, Arius at first took his stand:—The Son is not eternal, and He is created out of nothing. The former principle has but little force in itself, because he immediately adds (see note 2, p. 232), He was begotten out of time, before the world and time (irpb alavcov). The proper significance of the first position is determined by the second, which leads us from the time to the mode of the genesis of the Son, to His creation. The idea of the deity, he means to say, is complete in itself; its being is to be presupposed perfect, even apart from the Son. The Son forms, in no respect, a constituent part of the divine essence. There was no eternal necessity whatever in the essence of God that He should have a Son; for such a necessity would have been equivalent to a potential being of the Son in God. It was therefore not the idea of causality that impelled him to maintain that the Son was created out of nothing, and did not arise out of the essence of God. For between parents and children, for example, the causal relation is also one of essence, as Athanasius often objected. A further consideration co-operated to induce him to deny that the Son was of the substance of the Father. This consideration was not the unity of God, or a strict Monotheism; for Arius unhesitatingly, after his manner, set his face against a rigid Monotheism. But his conception of God admitted absolutely of no distinctions, no selfdiremption, no self-communication. He feared that if passages like " Of Him," "Out of His bosom," "I proceeded forth from the Father," were referred to the Son as an essentially equal portion (jtepa ofioovaiov) or as a irpofioXrj, God would be made aw^ero?, oWpero?, that is, He would lose, if not His unity, yet His simplicity (Ep. ad Alex.) and His self-sameness; He would become rpenro<; Kal Ctcofmi icaj ra aico\ovOa Tu> acofian irda^cov. He can only preserve His singularity by retaining His simplicity. Arius' chief blows were directed therefore against Sabellianism: he does not indeed deny that it is monotheistic, but charges it with robbing God of His singularity, and with commingling God and the world by neglecting to note the simplicity of the divine being. In Arius' eyes, God is avapyos, fiovdoraros, dBiaiperos.

The development of the idea of God has therefore now reached the point when the question arises, Whether God is in Himself rigid, abstract being, or living motion, and therefore the subject of distinctions. Arius failed to see the great difference between that which Alexander aimed at and Sabellianism; he was blind also to the fact that the Monarchianism of Sabellius started with a conception of God exactly like his own, to wit, from the conception of the essence of God as abstract unity. The only difference between Sabellius and Arius was, that the former placed the unity and simplicity of God under the category of substance, and was therefore able to conceive it as having accidents (the aspect of revelation, for example), which must ever return unto, and be commingled with, the substance; whereas Arius advanced further to the category of aXriov or cause, and first by means thereof aimed at distinguishing more determinately between that which posits and that which is posited. God is fiovdrraros, the highest causality in relation to the world; and that which is itself dyiwryrov, the final cause, alone deserves, in the strictest sense, the name of Deity. Arius did not deem the conception of that causality to be complete, unless taken together with the incomparableness and simplicity of God. Then first, in his view, do we arrive at a determinate and fixed distinction between the final cause and that which is posited, and consequently at the truth of the causal relation. That a speculative element was contained in this advance from the category of substance to that of causality, cannot be doubted. The only question is, Whether Arius, in his zeal for the causal relation, did not so overstrain the distinction between that which is effect and that which is cause, as to arrive at precisely the opposite result, to wit, that the cause can never really produce an effect, or, in other words, that the cause is incapable of being a cause. But, before proceeding to consider this question, let us first bring under notice the other aspect of Arius' first point of view. In his Epistle to Alexander he says, not merely,— "God alone is wise, good, unchangeable, the God of the Law, of the Prophets, and of the New Testament;" but also,—" He begat His only-begotten Son before eternal times (irpb yp6vcov aiavlmv), by whom also He made the world and the universe; He begat Him, however, not merely in seeming (Boictfaei), but in trutli; He constituted Him an hypostasis by His own will (yirearrjae), and made Him unchangeable and unalterable (arpeirrov tcat avaXkoicorov. To the same effect in the Epistle to Eusebius,— fiovXrjfMiri Kal Fiovxt} inrearrj 'rrpo ypovav—-TrXrjprjs 0eo? fiovoyevrj<; avaXXoicoros); a perfect work of God (jcrlap-a Oeov reXeiov),—not, however, like one of His other works; a production, but not like one of His other productions."

From this we see clearly, that at first he had no intention of depriving the Son of His unique position. The beginnings of Arius still bear very marked traces of the development which had preceded. The Son was still regarded as occupying an unique position among creatures; as unalterable and unchangeable; as bearing, therefore, a distinctive and peculiar likeness to the Father; as not needing first to merit the dignity and name of God, but as at once irXijprjs 0eo? (Ep. ad Euseb.). In giving Him life and being, the Father at the same time gave Him also His glory (to? 8o^a? avvuiroarrjaavrOS auru> Tov 7rar/so?, Ep. ad Alex.). He is therefore again represented as a middle being between God and the world. We find a new confirmation of this in the circumstance, that the Son was equipped for the creation of the world. For not only Athanasius, but even Alexander (Socr. H. E. 1, 6), justly asked,—" How can He who creates be like that which is created?" Precisely Arius' view of the causal relation necessarily involved fixing the greatest gulf also between the world and the Son, its Creator. The Son is raised to this high position, not indeed as an end in Himself, but merely as a means, with the design of filling up the still greater gulf naturally existing between God and the world; but in order to His being the principle of the cosmos, He is equipped with these lofty predicates. God in His uniqueness and majesty is too exalted, says Arius also, according to Eusebius (see above), for it not to be unworthy of Him to create the world; the world would not have been able to bear His hands (cf. de deer. syn. Nic. c. 8). For this reason, He created at first a single being, whom He termed Son and Logos, in order that He, taking up a middle position, might create the other things (rovrov fieaov yevop.evov: Athan. c. Ar. or. 2, 24 f.).*

¹ It is therefore probable that the idea of the creation, as effected by means of the Son, had even at that time been entertained by Arius. The notion advanced by ABterius, that the Son learnt how to create from the Father (Athan. c. Ar. or. 2, 28), belongs to an entirely different doctrinal formation, for there the rptirrot of the Son is already visible; but the Father is represented as creating immediately, and not merely through the Son. For if the Son be reduced to a lower rank than that assigned to Him at first, even by Arius, if a world is to be created at all, its creation must be entrusted to the Father Himself; that is, the entire basis on which they had originally begun to build their conception of God was again destroyed (see below). The opinion entertained by some Arians appears to have held a middle position between this and the one above mentioned. To the Father appertained the infiiovpytx, that is, probably, the creative act considered as an unity; to the Son the xrhfixru, that is, the creative works, which are a plurality.

We here see quite clearly, that the old higher conception of the Son hovered before the mind of Arras at the commencement of His career. For if God is too exalted, and the world too low to bear the immediate creative action of God; and if, on the other hand, He is not too lofty to create the Son immediately, nor the Son too low to be immediately created; evidently the Son must be as nearly as possible adequate to God: and this stands in most intimate connection with the circumstance of Arius then attributing perfection and unchangeableness to the Son (jrXrjprj<; 0eb<; fiovoyarrj<; avaWoicorOs).

Arius, however, soon went further; indeed, he could not avoid doing so; and although, from time to time, as though shocked at the conclusions to which he was being led,¹ he evinced a disposition to retrace his steps (for example, in the above-mentioned epistles to Eusebius and Alexander, after having allowed himself, even during his stay in Alexandria, in the first heat of the controversy, to be partially led away to statements which he was not able fully to endorse till a later period: compare the Ep. Alex. in Socr. 1, 6, and the Ep. Alex. ad Alex., Theodoret, H. E. 1, 3), the necessity of the case drove him irresistibly onwards, till he arrived at the system laid down in the Thalia.²

If, then, the Son is exalted above the world, and is constituted its Creator, in order that He may bridge over the gulf between it and the majesty of God; and if, accordingly, He continues in the nearness to God described above; what becomes of that utterly incomparable elevation and singularity of the Father I For, in that the Son was the worthy image of the Father, there was no longer any need for this very vehement opposition. On the contrary, something of the cause must have passed over into its adequate effect; consequently, the received doctrine of the essential equality of the Son could no longer be deemed objectionable, nor the use of the expression ef Ovk Ovtohv be justified.

¹ Unless we are ready to charge him point blank with double dealing.

2 Compare, in particular, Athan. c. Ar. or. 1.

Precisely this, however, appeared to him to lead, on the one hand, to Emanatism and to a division of God; and, on the other hand, to involve a corruption of the idea of causality, in consequence of importance enough not being attached to the distinction between effect and cause. He apprehended the reduction of the causal relation to a patripassian identity, or to a Sabellian substantiality, if too great a resemblance were posited between the Son and the Father. Inasmuch, therefore, as he intended by means of the causal relation to denote the distinction between the incommunicable, exalted Deity, and everything outside of it, he was compelled to adopt the course of giving greater prominence to the difference between the Son and the Father. If the Son really stood so near to God as he represented, for His very excellence sake, a certain necessity would have lain on the essence of God to bring Him forth; the existence of the Son would be, to a certain extent, involved in the idea of God Himself; He must be in some way supposed to have existed eternally in God, especially as His excellence could not have been derived from nothing, but must have been grounded in the divine essence and self-communication. Arius therefore passed by this form of the divine causality,—which involved the transmission of something of the essence of the cause to the effect, as in the case of parents and children; and which further seemed to him to bear a physical character, and to lessen the distinction between cause and effect,—and preferred another. To this course he was impelled by the decisive words, ef owe Ovtmv, implying as they did, that the essence of the Son was absolutely different from that of the Father; for they required both the development of the consequences involved in them, and the rejection of traditional determinations, the more inexorably, as, in the view of Arius, this was the only way in which full justice could be done to the incomparable dignity of God.

He ought, then, logically to have gone on to say,—Inasmuch as the Son must have sprung from nothing, and was a creature; and inasmuch, further, as everything which belongs to the world is unworthy of the dignity of God; there can exist neither Son nor world, but God alone in His singularity and solitude. For obvious reasons, however, he was unwilling to go so far; and contented himself with the obvious advantage offered by the ef Ovk ovrav, which appeared to him satisfactorily to provide for the dignity of God, and which presupposes a conception of causality, whose analogue is the free will of man, positing things that are not essentially necessary or homogeneous, but rather fortuitous, casual.¹

That which is created out of nothing, is of a nature totally different from that of God. Least of all can it he unchangeable, unalterable; for otherwise it would, in some way or other, be possessed of absoluteness; and absoluteness belongs to God alone. Nor could it be a temporal being; for the temporal is subject to growth, and therefore to change. Consequently (he now teaches), the Son is alterable and changeable (i-pen-rd? Kcll aXkoiombs rrjv <f>vaiv, <&? Km irdvra rei Xoyiica). As to essence, He is foreign to God (f«w, aXXoToto?), completely separated from Him (aireirypiviopAvos), unlike the substance of the Father, not veritably and naturally Logos of the Father, not the true power of God; but one of the so-called powers of God, as the locust (dicpls) also is termed not merely a power, but a great power (see Joel ii.); the many other powers, however, resemble the Son (Ep. Alex. in Socr. 1, 6; Athan. c. Ar. or. 1, 5, 6). If the case stand thus with the physical quality of the power and might of the Son, what remains for the will and the intellect? The Son neither knows Himself nor the Father completely; the Father is by nature a mystery, unutterable, incognizable by the creature; it is His idea to be unsearchable. For which reason, even the Son cannot reveal Him perfectly (Athan. c. Ar. or. 1, 6. 9; de Syn. 15; Note 47).

At this point we discern most clearly the feebleness, not merely of the religious, but even of the higher scientific impulse in Arius. In the sphere of the relative, his movements are easy and skilful; in the handling of the lower categories of logic, he evinces dialectic address; but he applies them as a standard to everything, and is unable to rise to anything higher.

¹ In consequence of not having the idea of true, ethical freedom, Arius feared to represent the cause of the world as working by necessity; and he was, therefore, unable to give a satisfactory account of ita origin. Its author, therefore, in the last instance, was Chance; only Arius gives this chance a seat in the will of God, in the form of caprice. He was right in repudiating a purely physical conception of God, seeing that it admits of no distinction between God and the world. But still he clings with one hand to the very same conception of God, when he gives an irrationality like accident, caprice, a place in God; and that with the notion of highly exalting Him. The fortuitous, in the form of an "accidens," may be attributed to God, viewed as substance; indeed, like Arius' conception of God, it is necessarily characterized thereby.

He is entirely destitute of the strictly speculative faculty. God's essence he represents as totally incognizable, and this incognizableness he deems to form part of His exaltedness: at the same time, he forgets that if we cannot know anything of God, we cannot know that His essence is incognizable. And further, although he maintains that we cannot truly know anything of God, he applies the idea of causality to Him in any way that answers his purpose. As concerns the religious aspect of the matter,—Christianity cannot on such a theory be the absolute religion; it can only differ from other religions in degree, not in kind. Nay more, we cannot even entertain the hope that another revelation will supply the lack. Alike by the divine loftiness, and by his own essential lowness—a lowness which not even God can change—man is condemned to remain eternally distant from God. God is, and continues, removed to an invisible distance; to communicate a knowledge of Himself, would be to communicate Himself, to break through the limits imposed by His loftiness. God therefore remains by Himself, and man by Himself: their separation is an essential one.

Finally, as to the Will:—this also is changeable. Arius denies to the Son essential goodness. Even whilst still in Alexandria, Socrates informs us, the Arians were asked (1. c.),—If the Logos, that is, the Son, were mutable, was it possible for Him to change into the opposite, as did the devil ?—and they answered in the affirmative. Arius allowed, it is true, that Christ remained virtuous, and did not turn to worse things; but if He should will, it is always in His power to turn to evil. Because God foresaw that He would continue faithful, He chose Him from all others: as God foreknew that He would be good (icaXov), He anticipatorily conferred upon Him the honour of being called Logos and Son. This honour He subsequently earned for Himself, as a man, by His virtue; so that the works foreseen by God were the cause of His becoming that which He now is.¹

¹ Athan. c. Ar. or. 1, 5:—K«i rji fiit (fiuii, utmtp irci»ris, Ovtus *««' uinos o Ao'yoff torl rppirror^ r£ oe tZtx uvrt^ovaiM, tus (SovXtrxi, ficevti xx">'.:, ort fiiirroi iiXil, ov»ct,rxi rpiirtctiui xu1 uiiros uamp xat ilfitl;, rprsriis uv ipvatus. Aix rwro ydp tPnui, xul irpoyituaxx» 6 Qtos, iatsdxi xxhou xvro», irp(>\u.%)» xvrci ruvrn» rt)i' oo^if« oile-ixt», nv alvipcmof xxi ix rr,: xoirns iayj fitrd rxinu, uare i% ipyw« uinov, uv irpoiyvu i Qeis, T<wo5tov Xvto* vim ytyoui»at xixo/nxi». Compare Theodor. H. E. 1,3, and the next note.

In this way, the dignity of being Son of God by birth, and consequently by nature, is taken away; and saints also, with the aid of the like rpmru>v iirifieXeia Kal daicrjaL^ may become what He is (compare Theodoret, H. E. 1, 3). An entirely different principle now begins to be adopted, and a merely ethical Sonship to be substituted for that of essence and nature. We have already found the idea of an ethical Sonship in a very developed state in the system of Lactantius (after hints by Paul of Samosata); Lactantius, however, never ceased to presuppose the essential and natural Sonship. The only novelty, therefore, is, that Arius reduces the natural divine Sonship of Christ to a completely inoperative thing, or, more exactly expressed, reduces it to nonentity. This harmonizes very well with one part of his system. He was concerned not merely to establish the loftiness of God, which, in the last instance, he was compelled to define as the absolute freedom of an arbitrary causality; but also to separate God and man in such a way as to secure to each complete (deistic) independence. If man is completely set loose from God, he is by that very means endowed with a likeness to God, in that, namely, God and the divine bear the same non-essential relation to him as the world bears to God. This separation, therefore, restores to man his equality to God;—neither the will of God nor the will of man is determined by anything essentially contained in it. Man also enjoys, in his measure, that formal freedom, which in God is absolute, and which constitutes the divine loftiness. Although, therefore, the divine causality was unable to transfuse any part of the divine essence into man and into the nature of Christ, because otherwise the distinction afilrmed by Arius, between God and the world, would be effaced; yet the freedom of Christ, indeed the freedom of men in general, is the principle which enables that which was created out of nothing, and is yet void of content, to secure a divine substance for its form; which, in a word, renders it capable of producing the divine out of itself, and of thus becoming deified. And, if we are not very nice in our use of words, this self-deification might be described as a divine X<*P^ls) °r Oeai s or Oeoiroirjais,¹ so far as God does not prevent it, but allows it to come to pass, and so far as He accepts the perfect man, the man who has become God, as His Son,' and confers upon Him titles and dignities.

¹ Athan. c. Ax. or. 1, 5. 6:—E/ it xxl hiytrxi Qeis, «JM' oix otKnh»islurm, «?iXoJ |K£roX7i xxpnos, uairtp xxl 0/ «?>Ao/ irx»rts, nvrx xui xirrcs 'hiytrxi ivifixri fiin» Qiot. De sent. Dion. c. 23 :—Ovk tori fii» Xxta ((>int» xxl dXnimo» Tow ®tov vlos, Xxtx Malt ie 'hiyvrxi xxl Ovtos 1t1'df, us xrUfix. Or. 1, 9 :—Merox/? xx'i xirris ehoiroiiin. Ep. Alex. ad Alex. in Theodor. H. E. 1, 3 :—" No one is Son of God by nature," say they; "therefore also the Son has not Qiaa if-xlptrov T< above others: but God selected Him from all others (i^tihi^xi xMr d^o irxrruv) because He foreknew that He would not go astray."

But although this formally ethical principle fits very well into one portion of the system of Arms, it is equally far from suiting the remainder. If divine Sonship, not merely in the new and higher form, but in general, must first be earned through the medium of formal freedom; if, further, the preexistent hypostasis, and the good which may be inherent therein, ought to be, nay more, must necessarily be, inactive, inasmuch as resemblance to God cannot proceed from God Himself, but must be the fruit of the exercise of freedom, not only in the case of men, but also in that of Christ;—to what purpose, then, this pre-existent hypostasis, which is reduced to inactivity? It is without significance relatively to Christology; it is nothing but a burdensome, confusing, cosmological appendage, which ought rather to have been cast aside with the occupation of this totally new point of view. Athanasius and Alexander were justified in saying to Arius, that his home was rather with Paul of Samosata than in the Church. Or is the pre-existent hypostasis of the Son supposed to render any service at all, even though merely in connection with creation? But he has so lessened it, and reduced it to the level of other rational creatures; he has made its entire dignity so completely dependent on its moral behaviour, that it is powerless to effect the creation of the world.¹ Or was this necessary, that Christ might be able to bring His revelation? What Arius thought of this matter we have seen already; and, at all events, his disciples very properly went on to maintain, that the Son also needed first to learn what He knew, and to deny to Him both essential knowledge and essential goodness (see note, p. 236).

¹ It is true, even in the Thalia, he does not venture to give utterance to this thought, but, at the same time, it sets forth the Son, so far as, in virtue of His office of Creator, He must occupy a higher position than we, as a mere instrument and means, of which we are the end; and, so far as He does not exist solely on our account, He is put on a level with us. Compare Athan. c. Ar. or. 1, 5. 6; Socr. H. E. 1. c. 1, 6.

Nay more, Enstathius of Antioch (Gallandi Bibl. IV. 580) informs us that some Arians did not even shrink from classing Christ amongst sinners. Inasmuch, further, as, in his view, all men are alike free, being rational creatures, what need can there be of Christ? Even in his Thalia, Arius found nothing whatever to say regarding sin. Nay more, according to his idea of virtue and freedom, every man must be able to redeem himself, or rather to raise himself up to God. Still, Arius must always have attached great significance to this pre-existent hypostasis; for he regarded it as, strictly speaking, the personal element in the human life of Christ, and on its account was compelled to mutilate the humanity of Christ, by denying to it a human soul; because, otherwise, two finite spirits must have been represented as constituting one person. But even on this supposition, the only office discharged by the hypostasis, is that of an hindrance; and precisely at this point does it become very evident that his principles, carried to their logical results, necessitated the rejection of the notion of a pre-existent hypostasis. Had he taken this step, he would have completely identified himself with Paul of Samosata. As it is, however, he is neither one thing nor another; and, being occupied solely with finite and single objects, never rises to a free survey, of the connections of the whole as such. He reduces God Himself, in His pre-eminence, to singularity, to an abstract individual, shut up in His own egoism: of love, that is, of the absolutely ethical, he has no notion whatever. Even the ethical which he recognises is a relative thing, grounded in the antithesis between God and man. We might also show, in connection with all the main points, that his dialectic, being that of the understanding, never fails, agreeably to its innate character, unconsciously to nullify earlier by later principles; although, at the same time, it consoles itself with the ineradicable conviction of the clearness and certainty of its own knowledge. Let it suffice, however, to draw attention to one or two. Arius affirms that there is but one God; and, because he refuses to allow anything to be abstracted from Him, he represents Him as incommunicable. And yet his deistic point of view drives him to attribute such an absoluteness to the world, as constitutes it in reality a plurality of deities. In presence of the freedom of man, God actually recedes completely into the background. Further, let it be remarked how Arius at first represents the Son as a >criafia, in order to preserve the simplicity and unity of God; and at the same time constitutes Him a creative, inferior God, in order that the gulf arising from the loftiness of God may not be too great. On a subsequent occasion, for the sake of this same divine loftiness, he puts the Son on a far lower level; but did not reflect that he was thus depriving the world of its basis, as which, his conception of God required him to regard the Son, and the Son alone. Finally, if this basis can no longer consistently be held to lie in the Son, but must be contained immediately in the Father alone, the principle of the entire course of thought, that on which he had mainly leant for support when reducing the Son to the rank of a KTiafia, is undermined; to wit, that of the abstract simplicity, incommunicableness of God, and His absolute separation from the world. It is clear, that a system of thought so destitute of hold, and so unweariedly occupied in refuting itself, could never produce a permanent type of doctrine; the restlessness, however, with which it jumped from one momentum to another, and ever turned the one against the other, was fitted to set them all in motion and ferment, and thus to prepare the way for their interpenetration and intermixture.

CHAPTER THIRD.

THE COUNCIL OF NICdEA, AND THE BEGINNINGS OP
ATHANASIUS.

The doctrine of Arius met with the warmest opposition, in the first instance, in Alexandria. Alexander refuted it from the Holy Scriptures, specially by means of the prologue to the Gospel of John. How can He be the First-born, if He is to be put on the same level with us all? Or how can He be the creator of Him whose equal He is? If the Logos and Wisdom were not as eternal as God, God must at one period have been without wisdom and reason. Further, were the Son mutable, how could He be so intimately united with the Father? If He is in the Father, and the Father in Him, He must thus be preserved from mutability; and not even the incarnation can have produced an alteration in Him. Further, how is it possible that He, who is reason itself, should not know the Father, whose reason He is (X07o?)? Or how can He have been brought into existence solely on our behalf, for whose sake, and by whom, all things were created 1 (Socr. H. E. 1, 6.) So far from having been Himself created out of nothing, He rather Himself created all things out of nothing, and must, therefore, be far removed from that which is created. On the contrary, it is impossible even in thought to represent an interval (8taarrjfid) between Father and Son. Not as though the Son had not been generated; one only is unbegotten, to wit, the Father; but the generation of the Son was something so exalted, that it surpassed the understanding of the Evangelists, and surpasses, perhaps, that of the angels also. He then, in particular, lays bare the subreption contained in the Arian proposition—171/ ore ovK Jjv. This, again, involves the existence of a time; but all time is created by Him, and comes into existence along with the world; consequently, the time in which He is said not to have existed, must have existed through Him, for otherwise the cause would be posterior to its effect. If a time had been created anterior to Him, He could no longer be described as the First-born of all creation. The Father, therefore, must always have been Father, because the Son, through whom He is Father, always existed. Precisely for this reason is He ever the perfect Father, who never lacks anything good (reXew<; ai/eXXi7T99 eV T&> Koxoj). Whoso denies the brightness, denies also the archetypal light (irpcororinrov <p&s), of which it is the reflection. If He, who is the express image (j(apaKTrjp) and copy of the divine essence, is not eternal, neither is the substance of the image and the object of the copy eternal. On this ground, the Sonship of the Redeemer has nothing in common with that of others; for His was a natural Sonship (jcarh <pvaiv Ttj<; irax/sun}? Oeorrjrosi): the latter is one of adoption (Oeaei). We are mutable in both aspects, and therefore need help from the Unchangeable One. How, then, can the wisdom of God be supposed to progress, or the power of God to increase? Or how can wisdom be supposed to be turned into folly, and strength into weakness? To the creature alone, on the contrary, is it given as a blessing, to be able to increase in virtue; and through Him, who is by nature Son, to be freed from the spirit of fear, and to receive sonship by grace, by adoption. The latter may possibly be lost; the former cannot be lost. But it is a calumny of the Arians to charge him (Alexander) with teaching that there are two ungenerated Beings, or to maintain that he ought to teach it, if he do not. The Father alone is unbegotten; He alone has no ground of His being out of Himself (ovBeva rov elvai avrf i rbv cS.'rt.ov ovra). The Son is in every other respect equal to the Father, and falls short in nothing, save that He is not unbegotten (povip ru> ar/evwyra Xecrr6fievov avrov); and to this difference refer the words, "The Father is greater than I." But He was not, therefore, created out of nothing, but is of the Father. In connection herewith, not only Arius, but also Sabellius and Valentine, are repudiated, who ascribe to God something resembling the body, corporeal divisions and emissions, instead of resting satisfied with the unutterable mystery, whose unsearchableness is declared even by the Scriptures (Isa. liii. 8), "Who shall declare His generation?" (Theodor. H. E. 1, 3.) We see from this, that Alexander's aim was to establish the closest possible connection between the hypostasis of the Son and His eternal divine essence. In carrying out his design, he decidedly posits a duality in God, and, if we may judge from the images employed by him, conceives the Logos of the Father to be objectified in the Son; though he does not express any opinion as to the relation between the reason and power of the Father (apart from which, no conception can be formed of Him), and the reason and power of the Son. His images, in themselves, would warrant us in concluding, that he conceived the Father to have reason and power, not in Himself, but in the Son; that he simply identified the reason of the Father and of the Son; that, consequently, the Son was the Father Himself, under a determinate form, and, as a determination or attribute, constituted part of the full conception of the Father. This, however, would contradict the duality which he had previously laid down.

A very numerously attended Synod, held at Alexandria (Socr. 1. c.), concurred with Alexander, and deposed Arius and his followers. But as Arius had a supporter in Eusebius of Nicomedia, and other Oriental bishops also took his part, an CEcumenical Council was convened at Nicaea, in the year 325, for the settlement of the points in dispute. The judgment of the Alexandrian Synod was confirmed, and the Nicene Creed was framed, which acknowledges the generation of the Son from the Father, and gives the following more precise definition of it:—That the Son is of the essence of the Father; that He is very God of very God; that He was begotten, not created. Mainly, however, in consequence of the efforts of Athanasius—that vigorous champion of Christian interests— there was added the recapitulatory term, o^oovaiov, the main purpose of which was, to express the identity of essence, though it also further implied or presupposed the equal coexistence of two: this latter was involved also in the term yewav. The only expression in the Symbolum, bearing on the nature of the distinction between the two, is the following: "The Son is of the Father, who begat Him." It is primarily directed against Arianism, not against Sabellianism. The latter, however, was also excluded, in so far as it was unable to attach any meaning to the idea of generation, specially not to that of the generation of a pre-existent hypostasis, which, as the Symbolum affirms, created the world. But the Creed contains also the idea of the eternal generation, as is clear when we combine the simultaneity of Father and Son with the yan/av. To the double affirmation contained in ofioovaiov, there is a correspondent double negation :—1. The Son did not ari$e out of nothing, nor indeed out of any other substance, or any other essence, than the Father (consequently, not merely o^oto? to the Father); He was, therefore, neither created nor mutable. 2. It is unlawful to say, There was a time when He was not, or, He was not ere He was generated; for these are propositions which apply the idea of time to the generation of the Son, and imply that the generation had a commencement. (Note 48.)

The duty devolving on the Fathers at the Council of Nicaea, was to set forth and confess the substance of the Christian faith, not to give doctrinal speculations. Hitherto, only a few had entered on dogmatical investigations; not till twenty years later did the Church in general devote attention thereto. If we take into consideration that the first effect of devoting attention to the dialectic conciliation of doctrines must necessarily be to rob many of that immediate assurance of the truth of Christianity by which they were possessed, and that the place of the really grand unity of spirit evinced in Nicaea must be usurped by a manifold variety of views, which, ere they could be brought, as to their principal features, not to say into uniformity, but into an harmonious unity, must be discussed, reflected upon, and thoroughly cleared up,—we shall esteem it a special favour of Providence, that the conscience of the Church was appealed to for its testimony and confession, so long as it still retained its direct certitude and simplicity; and that thus, at the very commencement of its voyage, a beacon was enkindled to mark the Church's pathway across the stormy seas which lay before it. But a firm and steady pilot's hand was also provided for the voyage, in the person of a man who was endowed with a superior, farseeing, and no less speculative than Christian mind, and who, through his power of endurance and strength of character, always remained master of the position. Athanasius the Great made it the task of his long and very eventful life to defend the creed adopted by the Nicene Council, with all the weapons of science and spiritual chivalry, against the vacillating and shortsighted on the one hand, and the apostate on the other hand, and to constitute it, not merely a vital and common treasure of all believers, but also a subject of real knowledge. And to him was given what is given to but very few—the happiness of seeing the idea to which, as youth and man, he had devoted his life, attain to ever wider influence and recognition, and of sinking into the grave, not merely crowned with honour, but laden with the fruits of his labours.

Specially noteworthy, as indicative of the character of the tendency of the Church at the beginning of the fourth century, are (besides the above) the two works written by Athanasius prior to the Nicene Council, and without reference to Arius, entitled Xo'yo? Kara 'EXkrjvcov (oratio contra Gentes), and irepl TJ7s ivavOpomrjaecos Tov Aoyov (de incarnatione Verbi Dei). These works set before .us, at the same time, the beginnings of Athanasius. He evinces an acquaintance with Greek philosophy, and his presentation of Christian doctrine has many points of affinity therewith; at the same time, however, the vital centre of Christianity is grasped by him with such intense fervour, and is treated in such a scientific spirit, that it gives us the groundwork of a grand system of speculative Christian theology. What engaged his attention above all things else, was the Logos. His existence he presupposed, firstly, as the faith of the Church; secondly, as conceded by the philosophy of the day; lastly, on historical grounds. He does not, it is true, enter into a closer investigation of the relation of the Logos to the Father, and to the unity of God; he does, however, examine His relation to the world in all the three aspects, of creation, preservation, and incarnation.

The purpose of his work was to communicate that which he had learnt from the many blessed teachers who had explained the holy Scriptures, and to show that the Christian faith—by which he understood the belief in the incarnation of the Logos —was no slight (ewreXe?) nor irrational (aXoyov) thing.

Let us, in the first place, consider his doctrine of God and man, in order thus to see what was the basis of his doctrine of the God-man.

He arrives at his idea of God, in the first place, by overcoming the error of Heathenism. God is neither the world, says he, nor a part of the world. In the world, every part is dependent on the other,—the rivers on the mountains, the mountains on the earth, the earth on the sun. God, however, cannot be dependent on another; if He were, He would not be God (c. Gent. c. 27). God must be self-sufficient, and requires for His existence nothing beside Himself. Nor can the whole world, its members joined together, as it were, into one body, be called God. It is true, there is nothing outside of the entire universe; and therefore it appears independent, self-sufficient. But if the individual members combine to form a whole, and this whole is therefore constituted by them, the whole consists of the individual parts, which together are the parts of the whole. This, however, is totally different from the idea of God. God is a whole; but He is not the parts; He does not consist of different parts, but is the cause of the world and of its composition. If He consisted of parts, He would be unequal to Himself, inasmuch as that which is unequal would be the complement of His being. Sun is not moon; moon is not earth; earth is not sea. The ear is not the eye; nor the hand the foot. This difference of the parts pertains to the idea of the body; the same difference, therefore, would appertain to God also, if He were identical with the universe, conceived as one body. Further, not being compounded, God is incorporeal, invisible, not tangible by hands, but apprehensible solely by the spirit; for this reason, therefore, He cannot be the world. On the contrary, He is in Himself, in His essence, self-sufficient, full of Himself (contra Gentes 28); and the cause of the existence of the universe.

But he does not believe that this self-sufficient God abides in His transcendence. On the contrary, like the old propounders of the doctrine of the Logos, particularly of the Alexandrian school, Athanasius says,—He is in the world as the immanent principle of its harmony. He desires no abstract loftiness of God, as did unbelieving Judaism; he neither apprehends any danger to God, nor regards it as unworthy of Him, that He should come into contact with the world. Although it is created out of nothing, and therefore, considered in itself, can neither bear nor maintain itself; still its idea involves an essential connection between God or the Logos and itself. This presupposes an entirely different conception of God from the heathenish one of the *Ov, and from the Jewish, to both of which abstract simplicity is essential,—in the former case, the simplicity of substantial Pantheism, in the latter case, that of Deism. Rather, says Athanasius, giving the idea of God an ethical turn,—God is good and not envious; therefore did He create the world; but especially in men has He taken an interest, through the Logos. Seeing that they cannot live always, He created them in His image, and endowed them with the power of the Logos, so that they became, as it were, shadows of the Logos (<rkuu Xoyov) and XoyiKoi. In that He further saw that the will of men was in itself still empty, and might incline to either side, He protected it preveniently by the command and by paradise. By nature, man was mortal; for he was created out of things that were not (ef Ovk ovrmv). But he possessed the capacity of immortality, through his union with the Logos. Had he by obedience continued in that union, the physical necessity of death would have been overcome by the divine principle of immortality, the Logos: men would then have been as gods. But man disobeyed, and death penetrated into the world, even as the divine threatening had announced. It entered by an inner necessity; for sin deprived man of the Logos, the only principle able to overcome his natural mortality. As sin grew, death grew; the image of God was destroyed; the work of God was overthrown (de inc. c. 3-6). The knot was tied still more firmly by the threatened punishment. The divine threat, the pledged word of the God of truth, could not suffer: on the other hand, must the work and image of God perish? It was not worthy of God to allow His own noble work of art to perish, for the sake of a deceit of the devil. Better had it been for God not to have created, than for the evil to have the better. To have allowed that which love had created to perish, would have been weakness, and inconsistent with omnipotence. Still more inconsistent with love. God did not look with indifference on His perishing work; it appealed to His love (i^eKaXeaaro, c. 4, 6).

Should God then require repentance, and through repentance restore man to immortality? In itself, this would not have been unworthy of Him; but He could not lay Himself open to the charge of untruth, even though for our benefit. Eepentance was not sufficient: had sin been the sole point in question, and not also punishment, repentance would have sufficed. But as matters actually stood, and seeing that God (the righteous) is true, who could help out of the difficulty, save the Logos? He, who created man out of nothing, was able to suffer for all, to stand in the stead of all (c. 7). Therefore the Logos came; He, who was incorporeal, imperishable, omnipresent, appeared in order to reveal Himself. He saw both our misery and the threats of the law; He saw how unseemly (zltoitov) it would be to annul the law, save by fulfilling and satisfying it; and at the same time, how unseemly it would be that the Creator should allow His rational world to perish. And as He saw the ever-swelling tide of sin, and that all were in bondage unto death, He took compassion on them and assumed a body, not by any necessity of nature (</>vcr«»9 cucoXovOta), for His essence is incorporeal (c. 1), but for the purpose of confirming and maintaining the first creation by means of the second. It is characteristic of the speculative mind of Athanasius, that he everywhere treats the first and second creations as closely connected with each other; that, in accounting for the miracle of incarnation, he goes back to that of creation; and shows that, for the sake both of the unity of the idea of the world and of God, it was necessary that He, and He alone, through whom the Father created the world, should renew it.

But He assumed no other body than ours. Had His object merely been to appear in some sort of body or other, He would not have needed ours; and if a simple theophany had been all that was required, He might have taken to Himself a much worthier organ. Rather did He assume our body, and out of the unspotted Virgin He built to Himself a body for a temple. This He constituted His organ (lSioiroieiacu cotnrep Spyavov), that He might dwell in it and be known through it. In consequence of this appropriation of our nature, He was able to give His body to the death for all. And now, inasmuch as all have died in Him, the law is annulled by being fulfilled, that is, its curse is removed through the satisfaction. But in appropriating the body, He bestowed upon it immortality, and through it has restored immortality to our nature. That which the act of appropriation implanted in our nature, as a mere potence, at the incarnation, became an actuality through His resurrection. He must needs let death have power over His body; in order that, by the death of death (the negation of the negation), in His resurrection there might be revealed the full and settled reality of life triumphing over, and reaching beyond, its antagonist, death (c. 8, 9).

The entire appearance of Christ, but, above all, His death, had an universal significance; because the Logos, who is above all, who is the Creator and Archetype, thereby made human nature His own. The appropriation had an effect not merely on the particular man Jesus, but also on human nature in general; for this reason, the death of all found its fulfilment in the body of the Lord (hrXrjpovro, c. 20). Guilt was heaped upon Him, collected itself in Him, the representative of the race; and His death was a payment for all. It was necessary that death should be broken, not merely in some one particular form, but as a general principle; and therefore did it behove Him to admit and take it up into Himself, so that He might overcome it completely. Now, inasmuch as the Logos, being the immortal Son of the Father, could not die, He took upon Himself a mortal body, to the intent that, by participating in the Logos, who is over all, it might be capable of dying for all, that is, of taking the guilt of all upon itself, of admitting the universal principle of death into itself, and of thus paying the universal debt and obtaining an universal victory over death. (Note 49.) Athanasius had the deepest insight into the connection between that which the incarnate Logos did and men, into its validity for us. To no other did it pertain to convert mortality into immortality, than to Him who in the beginning created the universe out of nothing, and who was Himself the Life (avro^forj); to no other than the archetype, the image of the Father, did it appertain to create man anew, "in the image of God" (c. 20, 13). If an image has been defaced, in order to its renewal the original must be compared (c. 14). Now that this Logos has taken to Himself our nature, our nature possesses Him; He belongs to us, who constitute the body of which He is the Head. Henceforth corruption has no more power over men, even in death; for in virtue of the unity of the body (which believers constitute for Christ), the Logos dwells in them. When a mighty king enters into a great city, even though he should but occupy one house therein, the whole city (just because it constitutes a whole) receives the highest honour. And so, when the Logos entered into our region and became the tenant of (even though only) one body, which was like ours, the power of death, which had reigned over all men from of old, disappeared (c. 9). We die still, it is true; but merely in order that we likewise may participate in the resurrection to a better state.

The first and principal ground of His incarnation, therefore, was, that the condemning law might be done away with, which burdens us with guilt and with the punishment of death. With this, also, was most closely connected, that death itself should be overcome by His payment of our debt, that is, by His own death. Another ground why the Logos must needs become man, was that men were otherwise too weak to know God (c. 11-13). Without the knowledge of God, men would have lived in vain; for, from the very beginning, they were created thereto. They had received a share in the Logos, the image of God; they were created to be His and the Father's image, in order that they might be able in the Spirit to lay hold on the Logos, and, in the Word, on the Father. This grace of the commencement (17 tear eUova %«/w) sufficed in itself, apart from the world or anything else, for attaining a knowledge of God (c. 12, c. Gentes 2, 30); it of itself reflected God. But as God knew the weakness and negligence of man, He gave him the world as a revelation, that great and beautiful edifice, which, in its harmony and unity, reflects the unity and wisdom of God. He further sought to help them through the law and the prophets, as through a sacred school, appointed to give the knowledge of God to the whole of humanity, in order that it might learn to rule its passions, and to live virtuously. Men, however, degraded themselves ever more to the level of irrational and brute creatures. How then were they to be helped? By the revelation in creation, which they no longer regarded as a revelation, but as a deity? They had turned their gaze downwards; and therefore the Logos also descended, assumed a body from beneath, made Himself like men, in order that they who refused to know Him out of creation might learn to know Him from the works which He wrought through the body (de incarn. c. 12-14). In this latter exposition, the incarnation is represented, not as the substance, but merely as the means or organ of doctrine. It might appear, therefore, as though, in the view of Athanasias, the main point was simply the knowledge of the X0709 aaapKos and of the Father, prior and subsequently to Christ. But, after the above account of the points to which Athanasius attached chief importance, this would plainly be a false view. His object was rather, after having treated of the main purpose of the appearance of Christ, which he deemed to consist in deeds, to show that even the intellect of man required a revelation, such as was given by the incarnation: as was natural, however, he did not succeed so well in showing the unconditional necessity of the incarnation in relation to the prophetical office as he had succeeded in relation to the high-priestly office; as to the latter point, indeed, he approximated very nearly to Anselm.

But in opposition to this incarnation objections are raised. How can we reconcile, he goes on to say, the dwelling of the Logos in a human body with His all-embracing infinitude? (c. 16,17.) He replies,—Though He dwelt in the body, He was not shut up in it; nor was He shut out from other places; but, as the Logos, He was in the body, moving it even as He moves the universe, which He created. It is true, He is not merely in the universe, but also outside thereof, as to His essence (jcar ovalav); He is also in the entire creation, seeing that He is in all its powers (eV irouriv icrriv reus eavrov Bwdfieai), ordering all things, extending His providence to all in all, giving life to each individual thing, and to the universe as a whole, embracing the universe without being embraced by it, existing everywhere in His entirety (oXos Karh iravra) in His Father alone. Our soul images forth in a weak way, how He, though in this body, was yet able to animate the universe. For, whilst sitting in the house, it is able to embrace distant objects, and to think of the heavens,—only, that its thoughts are not deeds, and do not move the heavens, as did the Logos in Christ; it merely knows their motion. What he here above all insists upon is, that the Logos, and not the limited humanity, is the true point of departure for the consideration of the Person of Christ. The Logos was not bound by the body, but held and bore it, even as He holds and bears up the universe; at one and the same time He was in the body and in the universe; nay more, as He was in, so also was He outside of, the All, resting in the Father. For this reason, it was impossible for the Logos to suffer either through birth, or through sin, or through death; on the contrary, in holding, He sanctified the body. Out of the Virgin He formed for Himself a body, in order to show that He was the Creator of the universe; and, without being seen as the Logos in the body, or being shut in by it, He made Himself known as Creator by His miraculous works. That Athanasius appropriates the sufferings of Christ to the divine nature also, even though not immediately, is evident from his doctrine of the ISw-n,oirjai<!, referred to above. Because the Logos appropriates the sufferings of the human nature along with the nature itself, they acquire a significance in and for the Logos Himself; and, on the other hand, because they are His, they acquire, as does His victory, an universal significance. He takes special pains, however, to point out that His miracles were revelations, self-representations, of His person, of Himself, as the Creator. He did not regard them as the mere credentials of His doctrine, but as veritable victories over nature, and over the heathenish view of the world. In the miracles, Creator and creature were most clearly discriminated from each other; for by the obedience which nature then rendered to His commanding word, He was revealed to it as its Ruler and Creator. Still, he deems the constantly occurring spiritual marvels the greatest of all (c. 27 ff.). No one doubts, when darkness disappears in the morning, that the sun is the cause thereof. And so, no one can doubt who Christ is, when he once beholds His works. Fear of death, and impotence to resist it, reigned ere He came. Now His followers tread death under their feet. They despise it as already dead; and the devil, who had the power of death, is treated by believers as dead. Previously, death was a terror; now, youths and maidens despise him and hasten to the martyr's fate. That Christ rose again and now lives, is evident from what He does: He daily erects trophies to Himself out of His disciples. That He is not a dead man, is clear from His omnipotent workings in the hearts of Greeks and Barbarians (c. 46 ff.). Since the incarnation of the Logos, Heathenism has fallen, the wisdom of this world has become folly, and the oracles are dumb. In the place of innumerable particularistic religions, one has been substituted which embraces all nations. In heaven, in hades, in humanity, and on earth—everywhere does man see the deity of the Logos unfolded before him, and himself encompassed by it. Tldvrcov 70p r&v T7J? tcrWT6W9 fJ-tpOOV ipfrClrO 6 Kvpios (c. 45, ell. 16 f.).

Our heathen opponents, it is true, advance, as their principal objection, "It was not worthy of the Logos to appear in a body" (c. 41 f.). With the penetration of a speculative mind, he answers,—If the Logos is in all things, in the entire world, which is justly termed one great body,—nay, even in each individual thing,—why could He not also dwell in a man, whom He moved, through whom He manifested Himself, even as He manifests Himself through the world 1 That which is true of the whole, must be true also of the parts; if the former is not unworthy of the Logos, neither is the latter; and if it be unworthy of Him to dwell in this body, it must also be unworthy of Him to dwell in the world. If He is in the whole, He is also in the parts. If He is in one part, He can use it as His organ for and on the whole. He is in Himself indivisible, 0Xo? ev etcacrrp icaj irouri; as He is in the sun and moon, so is He in humanity, which is a part of the universe. But—and he herewith provides for assigning a specific position to Christ—the spirit of man, also, although it pervades the whole man, reveals itself at one point of the body, to wit, the tongue. They ask, further,—" Why then did He not, at all events, assume a shining body?" Because His coming had not an epideictical, but a curative purpose. The main point was not simply to appear and to strike the eyes of beholders. He came to teach and to heal: therefore did He become a servant; therefore did He become that which men needed, in order that they might not be merely stunned by the loftiness and divinity of His appearance. It was not the brilliantly shining bodies, the sun, the moon, the ether, that had gone astray; they had remained in their proper order, the order appointed for them by their King, the Logos: it was men who had gone astray. He therefore constituted their body His organ, in order that, although they were unable to know Him in the universe as a whole, He might perhaps not remain concealed from them in the part; and in order that, though they were unable to behold His invisible power, they might possibly be able to understand and know Him through His resemblance to themselves. For the contrast between His divine works and the body like their own must needs suggest a comparison, and thus lead them to the knowledge of His deity. If this is inconceivable, it is inconceivable also that He should be known by means of the world. Although in the world, nothing of the world pertains essentially to Him; but the world does participate in Him. Even so, though He employed the body as His organ, there was nothing in common between them; on the contrary, He sanctified the body. Plato says,—"When the Generator of the worlds sees the world stormtossed and in danger of coming to the place of inequality, He ascends His throne at the helm of the soul, gives it aid, and sets all things to rights. What marvel, then, if we say,— Humanity had gone astray, and therefore the Logos ascended His throne on it, and appeared as a man (c. 42, 43)?

Another objection is,—" God might have helped men by a mere nod." Athanasius answered,—The world, it is true, was created by a nod; but now it was a question not merely of the creation of man, but the man already created must be considered: and he could only be helped by one like himself; in other words, man could not be magically helped by an entirely new creation, but the redemptive work must make use of, and begin with, his already existing powers and character. The

VOL. II. B

Creator must come nigh to the fallen through the medium of a human organ, and this organ He must take from that which already existed; for it was the existent, and not the non-existent, that stood in need of salvation. Further, the death which needed to he overcome was not something external to the hody, but adhered inwardly to it; as a permanent principle, and not merely as a single assault or act, did it threaten man. He might have overcome death from without; but it would still have remained in man. Hence it was necessary that the process should be an inward one. Our body, subjected as it was to death, was assumed, and was married with life; it was clothed with immortality, and death was vanquished. The body now has life for its garment,—as it were, a robe of asbestus. This is far more than if a stop had been put to death's work, by a mere external and authoritative command, and it itself had remained unvanquished. It was therefore perfectly worthy of the Logos to come in the body in order to overcome death, and to reveal Himself everywhere,—as through creation, so also through His body and His deeds, and to fill all things with His knowledge (c. 44). Therefore, let every man regard the Logos in the works which He accomplished as God-man, which were not human works, but works of the Logos, and let him judge for himself whether that be human or divine. If it be human, let him mock. If it be not human, but divine, let him stand and admire this revelation. Through this trifling thing (irpdyfia evreXes) was the divine exhibited to us; through this death did immortality penetrate to all; through the incarnation of the Logos was providence made manifest for the universe. But the things which He accomplished by His incarnation are so numerous, that to attempt to count them up would be like attempting to drain the sea. Wave presses on wave, and for the eye to embrace the whole is impossible. 'O X6yo<; ivqvOpamrjcrev, Xva ij/xets OeoiroirjOcofiev (c. 54).

Although the immediate subject of these writings is not the relation of the Logos to the Father, so much is clear, that, according to this view of the matter, drawn as it is out of the very centre of Christianity, to wit, the idea of the atonement, to the Son pertains true and perfect deity, even as to the Father. He is discriminated in the clearest manner from all creatures; and as the Logos over all, rather rests in the Father (avroX0709 /eal Becx;, de incarn. 54); is the Father's image and like the Father, the archetype of men (c. 13). He is also most decidedly distinguished from all angels, for they are not the image of the Father (ibid.). In these treatises, therefore, Athanasius stands nearer to Sabellianism than to Subordinatianism; so far, namely, as he is more concerned about the true and full deity of the Son than about His distinction from the Father. But he differs from Sabellius in regarding the Logos as the image of the Father, pre-existent, yea, ever resting in God, which Marcellus, for example, could not allow. As respects his Christology, by the depth of his view of the fundamental idea of Christianity, he reminds us of the best Fathers of the second century, particularly of Irenaeus. He surpasses them, however, in clearness and scientific precision. The soul of his system is the Logos over all, who, as such, in that He became man, is the head and representative of humanity in two respects,—to wit, in that He took upon Himself its guilt and punishment; and that the healing of human nature in and through Him becomes the portion of humanity, and is diffused from Him to all. At the same time, it is worthy of note, that he did not conceive the Logos in Christ as a mere influence, but as a being of God in Him. In fact, he looked upon the Logos as the motive, hegemonic, personal principle in the Godman; but he makes no particular allusion to the human soul. The arguments he advances, undoubtedly presuppose a complete humanity (compare, for example, de incarn. c. 42 f.); but he makes express mention of the body alone (a&fia, aap^); and the enemy to be vanquished is principally death. The impotence of the soul to know itself immortal, is undoubtedly represented as one ground of the incarnation; but his theory, in the form in which it is here set forth, does not require for the removal of this impotence, that Christ should substitutionarily appropriate or feel it Himself, but merely that He should admit into Himself the objective principle of death, that He should take upon Himself the debt (ofcikop.evov, not culpa) of men; and this supplied no occasion for more carefully considering the question of the human soul of Christ. Such a view leaves no place in the humanity for free choice, free determination, for change, or even for true development (although he aimed at preserving the reality of the humanity); but the man Jesus was simply and solely the Logos, walking among men in the human nature which He bore. Athanasius thus verged towards the old representation of the body of Christ as a garment or temple, which excludes the full idea of the incarnation. It is remarkable, however, that precisely here, Athanasius made a decided effort to rise beyond that meagre notion, in that he started from a different point, to wit, from the idea of Christ as the representative both of guilt-laden and of God-pleasing and immortal humanity. For he frequently repeats the remark,—What we needed was not a mere theophany, but that He should really become one of us; in order to be our representative, He must not merely have, or bear, or dwell in a man, but must Himself be this man. Athanasius thus rose most decidedly above every form of Sabellian Christology; and therefore, taking our stand on this thought, which was the centre of his system, we may beforehand anticipate the nature and degree of the progress which we shall afterwards find him making.