BK Baur, Ferdinand Christian, 1792-1860. The church history of the i first three centuries^^ 1^' IProsjjcctus of tlje THEOLOGICAL TRANSLATION FUND. As it is important that the best results of recent theological investigations on the Continent, conducted without reference to doctrinal considerations, and with the sole purpose of arriving at truth, should he placed within the reach of English readers, it is proposed to collect, by Subscriptions and Donations, a Fund which shall be employed for the promotion of this object. A good deal has been already effected in the way of translating foreign theological literature, a series of works from the pens of Hengstenberg, Haevernick, Delitzsch, Keil, and others of the same school, having of late years been published in English ; but — as the names of the authors just mentioned will at once suggest to those who are conversant with the subject — the tendency of these works is for the most part conservative. It is a theological literature of a more independent character, less biassed by dogmatical prepossessions, a literature which is repre- sented by such works as those of Ewald, Hupfeld, F. 0. Baur, Zeller, Eothe, Keim, Schrader, Hausrath, Noldeke, Pfleiderer, &c., in Germany, and by those of Kuenen, Scholten, and others, in HoUand, that it is desirable to render accessible to English readers who are not familiar with the languages of the Continent. The demand for works of this description is not as yet so widely extended among either the clergy or the laity of Great Britain as to render it practicable for publishers to bring them out in any considerable numbers at their own risk. And for this reason 2 the publication of treatises of this description can only be secured by obtaining the co-operation of the friends of free and unbiassed theological inquiry. 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Of these, the following were published in The First Year (1873) : 1. Keim (Th.), History op Jesus of Nazara. Considered in its connection with the National Life of Israel, and related in detail. Second Edition, re-translated by Arthur Eansom. Vol. I. Introduction ; Survey of Sources ; Sacred and Political Groundwork ; Religious Groundwork. 2. Baur (F. C), Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, his Life and Work, his Epistles and Doctrine. A Contribution to a Critical History of Primitive Christianity. Second Edition, by Eev. Allan Menzies. Vol. I. 3. Kuenen (A.), The Peligion of Israel to the Fall of the Jewish State. Translated by A. H. May. Vol. I. The Second Year (1874) : 4. Kuenen's Religion of Israel. Vol. II. Translated by A. H. May. 5. Bleek's Lectures on the Apocalypse. Edited by the Rev. Dr. S. Davidson. 6. Baur's Paul ; the second and concluding volume. Translated by the Rev. Allan Menzies. The Third Year (1875) : 7. Kuenen's Religion of Israel; the third and concluding volume. 8. Zeller, The Acts op the Apostles critically examined. To ■ which is prefixed, Overbeck's Introduction from De Wette's Handbook, translated by Joseph Dare, B.A. Vol. I. 9. Ewald's Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament. Translated by the Rev. J. Frederick Smith. Vol. I. General Introduction; Yoel, Amos, Hosea, and Zakharya 9 — 11. The Fourth Year (1876) : 10. Zeller's Acts op the Apostles. Vol. II. and last. 11. Keim's History of Jesus of ISTazara. Vol. II. Translated by the Rev. E. M. Geldart. The Sacred Youth ; Self-Recognition ; Decision. 12. Ewald's Prophets of the Old Testament. Vol. II. Yesaya, Obadya, Mikha. The Fifth Year (1877) : 1 .3. Paulinism : a Contribution to the History of Primitive Christian 1.5. Theology. By Professor 0. Plleiderer, of Jena. Translated by E. Peters. 2 vols. 14, Keim's History of Jesus of Nazara. Translated by A. Ransom. Vol. III. 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Schrader (Professor E.) The Old Testament and Cuneiform Inscriptions (in 2 vols.). Pfleiderer's Philosophy of Religion. Translated by the Eev. Alexander Stewart, of Dundee. WILLIAMS & NOEGATE. 14, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, LuNDUN, W.C. THEOLOGICAL TRANSLATION FUND LIBRARY. THE CHURCH HISTORY THE FIRST THPvEE CENTURIES. VOT;. IT. THE CHURCH HISTORY OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES. DR. FERDINAND CHRISTIAN BAUR, Sometime Professob of Theologv in the University of Tubingen. THIRD EDITION. 1iEr.an!3lntci5 from the (JScniuin by THE REV. ALLAN MENZIES, B.D. Minister of Abernyte. VOL. II. WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON; ANO 20 SOUTH FREDERICK STREET. EDINBURGH. 1870. •■> ^ ].;■ '7 %/ ^cgIS^^ NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. Up to the middle of the present volume I have had the advantage of using a version of the work previously prepared for Mr. Williams. I am, of course, responsible for the whole of the translation as now published, Allan Menzies, VOL. n. COJNTTENTS. PART T H I E D— Continued. PAGE II. — The Catholic Church as the antithesis of Gnos- ticism and Montanism, . . . . . 1-61 I. The Dogmatic Antithesis, . . . 1-15 The idea of the Catholic Church, . . 1-3 Attitude of the Doctors of the Church to Gnosticism, . . . . 3-15 Clement of Alexandria and Origen : their affinity to Gnosticism, . . . 3-8 Irenaeus and TertuUian : their Antithesis to Gnosticism and Philosophy, . . 8-11 Scripture and Tradition, Heresy and Catholic Doctrine, .... II. The Hierarchical Antithesis, The Congregational Office and the auto- nomy of the Congregations, The Clergy, Presbyters and Bishops, The Episcopate, .... Notion of the Episcopate, It arose out of the desire for unity and the antithesis to the Heresies, The Pastoral Epistles, 11 -15 16- ■61 16- -22 22- -25 25 25- ■26 28- -30 30-31 CONTENTS. Pseudo-Ignatius and Pseudo-Clement, The idea of the Episcoxaate and the principle of its unity, Montanism and the Episcopate, The Bishops, the organs of the Spirit, Synods, ..... The system of the Hierarchy, PAGE 31-39 39-45 45-52 53-55 56-58 59-61 PAET FOUETH. Christianity as highest principle of Rcvclatmi ; ctnel as Dogma, ....... 62-126 Transition to Dogma, ..... 62-64 ^ Christology of the Synoptic Gospels and of Paul, 65-72 Of the Apocalypse, .... 72-74 Of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the lesser Pauline Epistles, ..... 74-79 The Johannine Logos-notion, 79-85 The Apostolic Eathers and the Early Fathers, . 86-92 The Monarchians, ..... 92-107 1. Praxeas and Callistus, 92-94 Noetus, ...... 94-95 Sabellius, ...... 95-99 2. Theodotus of Byzantium and Artemou, . 100-101 Beryllus of Bostra, .... 102-105 Paul of Samosata, .... 105-107 The further Development of Doctrine, . 107-120 Origen, ...... 108-112 Arianism, ...... 112-115 The opposing Systems, .... 117-118 The Nicene Do^ma, .... 118-120 CONTENTS. ix PAGE Dogma iu general : the Doctrine of God, of Moral Freedom, of the Church, . . . . 120-126 PAET FIFTH. Cliristianity as a jJOivcr riding the World : iu its rela- tion to the Heathen Wo7'ld aiid to the Roman State, 127-232 Transition to this Part, .... 127-128 I. The relation of Christianity to the Heathen World and to the Eoman State, on its inner side, 129-189 The world-consciousness of the Christians, . 129-131 The hatred of the Heathens, and the silent working of Christianity, . . . . 131-136 The Apologists, 136-140 The philosophically cultivated opponents, . 140-189 Celsus, 140-167 Significance and plan of his work, . 140-143 His attack from the Jewish standpoint, . 143-146 His depreciatory verdict, . . . 146-148 His opposition to the principle of Eevela- tion, 149-155 Different arguments in comparison with Platonism, ..... 155-158 Demonology as a chief point of contact and of difference, . . . . 159-164 Christianity a deceit and delusion, but a power of the age, . . . . 165-167 Lucian, 167-174 In what way different from Celsus, . . 167-168 His Peregrinus Proteus, . . . 168-172 Christianity is fanaticism, . . . 173-174 X CONTENTS. PAGE Philostratus, 171-179 His life of Apollonius of Ty ana, . . 174-177 EeligioiTS Syncretism, . , . . 178-179 Porphyrins, . . . . . . 179-186 His polemical work, .... 179-181 Critical attitude of Xeoplatonism, . . 181-184 Hierocles, 184-186 The authority of Tradition and the principle of Pieligious Liberty, . . . . . 187-189 2. The relation of Christianity to the Heathen World and to the Eoman State, on its outer side, . 190-232 Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, .... 190-196 Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, . . 196-206 Septimius Severus, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, 206-208 Decius, Gallienus, 208-210 Diocletian, 210-215 The religious Edicts of the Eoman Emperors, . 215-221 The first, by Galerius, Constantine, and Licinius, 215-218 The second and third, by Constantine and Licinius, 218-221 Constantine, 221228 His love of unity, ..... 221-224 His Politics and Eeligion, . . . 225-228 The victory of Christianity, .... 228-232 P A E T SIXTH. Christianity as a Moral Beligious Frinciplc in its ahsolutcncss ; and its limitation in time, . . 233-289 The ]\Ioral Eeligious Principle of Christianity ; its universality and its energy, . . . 233-234 CONTENTS. The Moral attitude of the Christians on its bright side, ....... Their avoidance of the Spectacles, Their retirement from Politics, and the in- wardness of their society among them- selves, ..... Wedlock and Household Life, . One-sided and narrow elements of the Christian Morality, y The fear of Demons, The collisions of their Moral Eigorism, .Their dualistic and ascetic view of life. Marriage, ..... The Gnostics, .... Tertullian, ..... The Celibacy of the Priesthood, Mortal and Venial Sins, . Good Works, ..... The idea of the Church the principle of moral action, ..... The purer moral principles of Clement of Alexandria, ..... Laxity of moral practice. The Christian Cultus, .... Its original elements. The Eucharist and the Agapae, The celebration of the Passover, Sunday and the Sabbath, . Other forms of Cultus, Saint-worship, .... 235-243 236-238 238-240 240-243 243-275 244-245 245-248 249-251 251-263 251-257 257-263 264-267 267-271 271-273 273-275 275-277 277-279 279-289 279-280 280-282 283-284 284-285 285-287 287-289 THE CATHOLIC CHUKCH, AS THE ANTITHESIS OF GNOSTICISM AND MONTANISM. 1. THE DOGMATIC ANTITHESIS. In Gnosticism and Montanism, the Christian life of the first post-apostolic period put forth its most vigorous energy and the richest abundance of its productive power. Gnosticism gives the clearest proof that Christianity had now become one of the most important factors of the history of the time ; and it shows espe- cially what a mighty power of attraction the new Christian principles possessed for the highest intellectual life then to be found either in the Pagan or in the Jewish world. The in- gredients of Gnosticism were very multifarious; Hellenic and Jewish elements were blended together in it in manifold forms ; but Christianity provided all these with a common centre, from which the numerous Gnostic systems proceeded to attempt ever new combinations of the most different kinds. The problem under- taken by all of these systems was that which then occupied the most thoughtful minds, and ever afterwards continued to be the most important subject of Christian religious philosophy, viz., how Christianity was to be interpreted in a general view of the world. And if we couple Montanism with Gnosticism, and con- sider how it also contributed new and energetic spiritual impulses, and raised fresh questions which were of importance not only as to practical life, but also as to the true construction to be given to Christianity, we receive a very life-like impression of the spiritual movement of the time, and of the restless ferment in which so many elements were confusedly heaving, and meeting and cross- ing one another in the most various directions. But in view of VOL. n. ^^ A 2 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. these widely diverging movements, a counter-action was necessary, if Christianity was not to lose its original peculiar character. On the one side, the practical religious interest of Christianity, that which the Christian consciousness immediately affirmed, had to be maintained and asserted against the transcendental Gnostic speculations ; and, on the other, that millenarian fanaticism had to be combated, which precluded the very possibility of any historical development whatever, and the ground had to be won whereon Christianity could plant itself firmly in the world. Tlie first necessity of all, then, was to have a point of union, by means of which allied and accordant elements might be held together, and an adequate counterpoise be opposed to all heterogeneous and eccentric tendencies alike. This is the idea of the Catholic Church. Already this idea had wrought as a higher power, rising superior to the opposition of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, and uniting both in one common interest. And now, appearing as the antithesis of Gnosticism and Montanism, it attained a more definite consciousness, and, as the circle of its influence extended, showed more and more what were its own true shape and character. The great struggle with Gnosticism, which lasted through tlie whole of the second century, and forms so important a part of the history of the development of Christianity and of the Christian Church, was twofold — both dogmatic and ecclesiastical. The whole character of Gnosticism was widely alien to Christianity, as indeed was inevitable from the nature of the elements from which it proceeded. So much was this the case that in each of its forms Gnosticism entered on a fresh battle with Christianity. The antithesis of the two principles, with the dualism resulting therefrom, and the Gnostic repugnance to everything material — the series of Aeons, intended to stand as connecting links between God and the world, and which placed the doctrine of an emana- tion of the world from God in the place of the Jewish-Christian conception of a free creation — the separation of the Creator from the one supreme God — the co-ordination of Christ with other CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA AND ORIGEN. 3 divine beings, whose likeness to him could only be regarded as a derogation from his absolute dignity— the whole process of world- development, into which Christianity was interwoven in such a manner that the facts of the redemption accomplished through Christ inevitably lost their moral and religious meaning, and even their historical character : all this stood in the most decided opposition to the fundamental view of the Christian consciousness. , Undeveloped as Christian dogma still was — and it was chiefly through its opposition to Gnosticism that it became more accurately fixed and defined — yet from the very first a Christian antithesis could be found for each Gnostic doctrine. On the other hand, a considerable part of Gnosticism possessed an afiinity and accordance with Christianity ; and as soon as Christianity had spread to some extent among the upper classes, every cultivated man, every man initiated into the ruling ideas of the age, felt that he was directly called upon to answer for himself the same question which the ; Gnostics were endeavouring to solve. The relation of Christianity \ to Gnosticism therefore could by no means be one of mere hostility and repulsion ; and it was natural that in the contro- versy the doctors of the Church should take up various positions. Least of all could those who lived in the circle of ideas whence Gnosticism itself had come forth in the persons of its most eminent v chiefs assume an attitude of simple opposition. Alexandria, the birthplace of Gnosticism, is also the birthplace of Christian theo- . logy, which in fact, in its earliest forms, aimed at being nothing f but a Christian Gnosticism. Among the Fathers, Clement of Alexandria and Origen stand nearest to the Gnostics. They rank jva)aicare Lipsius, de dementis Rom. Epist. ad Cor. priore disquisitio. Lips., 1853, p. 20 sq. Even such a matter of course as the intention that these offices should be continued in the future could not be imagined without a special apostolic ordinance. 20 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. whole future hierarcliy lead us back is unquestionably congrega- tional self-government. This self-government is recognised in the Acts of the Apostles, where, in an election (that of the first deacons), which takes place at the invitation of the apostles, the co-operation of the collective number of the disciples is necessary. It is presupposed by Paul ; he can only complete an intended excommunication, 1 Cor. v. 3, with the con- sent of the congregation ; and in like manner, with regard to the reconcilement and restoration of the ofi'ender, he makes his decision to depend entirely on that of the congregation, 2 Cor. ii. 5 sq. A proof that self-government was originally an essential charac- teristic of the Christian congregations is seen in the- fact that it still existed uncontested in the form of congregational universal suffrage at the time when Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage, repre- sented the clergy in the full consciousness of their rights.^ Even the functions afterwards discharged by the clergy alone in virtue of their specific official character were not at first assigned exclu- sively to the persons at the head of the congregations ; it was not in distinction from the other members, but only through them, that they came to do these acts. What at a later time were exceptions attest the universal practice of the early Church. Paul supposes a universal right of teaching when he denies it to women alone, 1 Cor. xiv. 34. But he says also, xii. 28, that God appointed in the Church first apostles, then prophets, thirdly teachers ; and thus speaks of the teachers as a class by themselves. The author of the Epistle of James only asks that there be not too many teachers, iii. 1, sq. ; in the Epistle to the Hebrews, xiii. 7, the readers are admonished to remember the leading men as those who have uttered to them the X0709 rov &eou ; and in the Epistle to the Ephesians, iv. 11, after the apostles, the prophets, the evan- ^ He writes, Ep. 32, to the presbyters, deacons, and the universa plebs : In ordinationibiis clericis solemus vos ante consulere, et mores ac merita singnlorum communi judicio ponderare. In Ep. 67 he says of the plebs itself that it " ipsa maxime habeat potestatem vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes, vel malignos recusandi." THE CLERGY. 21 gelists, and the pastors, we find teachers also mentioned. In the Shepherd of Hermas/ where episcopi, doctores, and niinistri are mentioned together witli the apostles, the word doctores certainly does not signify the presbyters as distinguished from the bishops : but the episcopi, who are not distinguished from the presbyters, are merely placed first because (as in the case of the Trpoeo-rco?, Justin's Apolog. i. 67), they combine the office of teaching and that of superintendence ; and this is not inconsistent with the existence of other doctores also. If we take all the evidence together, it is clear that the work of active teaching, though annexed to the ministry of the Church, was not exclusively attached to it. In later times, therefore, the right to teach could not be absolutely denied to the laity ; it was merely required that when they taught they should deliver their discourses in the pre- sence and with the approval of the bishops." Nor, again, do the primitive regulations concerning baptism and the Lord's Supper exhibit any trace of the later specific distinction between clergy and laity. It is true that, according to Tertullian,^ the right to baptise belonged to the priest highest in rank, that is, to the bishop, and after him, though not without the bishop's approval, to the presbyters and deacons. But the same right, it was affirmed, belonged to the laity also, since what was received ex aequo could also be given ex aequo : only, they should not use it except in cases of necessity. So with the Lord's Supper ; it was the custom of Christendom that only the president dispensed it, as, according to Justin, it is the irpoeaTox; who blesses the bread and wine ; but, asks Tertullian, are not the laity also priests ? Where only three are gathered together, though they be all lay- men, there is the Church.* Thus all that the clergy afterwards claimed especially to be, all that they regarded as their peculiar 1 Vis. iii. 5. In the Greek text, known to us through Simonides, we find only eVicTKOTroi (cat StSaffKaXoi, without the ministri. But immediately after come, in the following order, eTna-Konrjaavres Ka\ Bibd^avres Kai diaKovrjaavTes. Dressel, Patr. Apost. Opera., Lips., 1S57, p. 579. 2 Cp. what is related by Eusebius concerning Origen, E. H. vi. 19. 3 De baptism., cap. 17. * De exhort, castit. 22 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. attribute, was claimed by TertuUian for the laity as a universal right of Christian priesthood.^ But though the original spirit of congregational autonomy was still vigorous in the congregations of this period, and asserted itself as of old even where it could no longer be put in practice, yet already there had arisen a special class of ecclesiastical per- sons, whose official activity comprised all functions relating to the congregations as a whole, and the congregation had thus become divided into two distinct orders. Clergy and laity (laici), or the ordo and the plebs, stood over against each other under those distinctive names ; but it is remarkable that even this division was originally quite free from any hierarchical notions.^ Though the above-mentioned terms convey a definite distinction, yet, as Tertul- 1 RitscW proves (1st ed., p. 367 ; 2d ed., p. 347, sq.) with very minute detail that the congregational officials, according to the original view of their relation to the congregation, did not hold, as distinguished from the latter, any special religious or priestly character. This applies also to the power of forgiving sins, to the laying on of hands in baptism, and to the absolution of the lapsed. 2 The case would be otherwise if, as Jerome says (Ep. 52) the clergy were so named with reference to Deut. x. 9, xviii. 2, because they de sorte sunt domini, or because dominus ipse sors, i.e. pars clericorum est. Neander questioned this interpretation, on the ground that it seems inconsistent with the historical usage of the word KXrjpos ; but his own explanation erred by making too much of the notion of " lot" in the word. In my essay, Ueber den Ursprung des Episcopats (1838, p. 93, sq.), T have pointed out that in the letter of the churches of Lug- dunum and Vienna, in Eusebius (E. H. v. 1), where a jcA^poy fiaprvpcov is spoken of, and in some passages in the Ignatian Ejiistles, the word /cX^pos seems to mean a class, and particularly a high class. E.itschl shows this more minutely (1st ed. 398, ,^q., 2d ed. 390). KXrjpos means degree, rank, as where (Eusebius, E. H. iv. 5) it is said of the sixth bishop of Alexandria, Trjv TrpoaTaaidv e/crw K\r]pa> 8ia- Bexerai. KXrjpos is equivalent to rd^is. Now there is also a distinction of KKrjpoi within the Christian ministry, and here /cX^pot are successive offices, successive steps of rank. Thus Irenaeus says (Adv. Haer. iii. 3) of the Ptoman bishop, Eleutlierus, that he held tov Trjs eTrKTKowTJs Kkripov in the twelfth place from the apostles. KX^pos is here a rank, as even in the Acts (i. 17, 25) the apostolic office is termed 6 fcX^pos rijs Siaaovias ravrtjs. In the same way we hear of a KXrjpos Toiv paprvpciv, a class of martyrs. A whole church too is called KXrjpos, as when Ignatius wishes that he may be found eV KXrjpco ^Ecpecriav ■^(piaTLavmv, who had always been in accordance with the apostles. The Christians of Ephesus had thereby gained precedence before others, and thus here the conception of a higher rank is attached to the word icXrjpos. The special meaning of the word, its exclusive transference to a particular order — that of ecclesiastical officials — is undoubtedly analogous to the meaning of the expressions " rank," " position," THE CLERGY. 23 lian clearly says,^ the conception of the clerus still contains nothing that tends to remove the original and essential equality of the two orders. The clergy had only an honorary precedence above the other members of the congregation. They are no doubt by this time considered priests ; their ordo is not merely the ordo ecclesias- ticus, but also the ordo sacerdotalis ; and it is precisely in contrast to the priesthood that the words Xao'i, \aiKol, bear their peculiar meaning, since a XaiKO'i avOpwrro'^, as defined by Clement of Eome, cap. 40, is one who is neither ap-)(^Lepev 7rpeo"/3vre^ia) nai ^laaovois — X^P*-^ '''"'' iiridKonov /iJjSei' TrotfTre — Trjv evuxTLV dyanare, etc. THE EPISCOPATE— CLEMENT AND IGNATIUS. 33 against the Petrine Clement the hero of the Jewish Christian tradition, the bishop Ignatius, also one of the personages of the apostolic age. In the bonds of his captivity, in his journey from the East to the West under the escort of Eonian soldiers, and in his martyrdom at Eome, the figure of the apostle Paul was to be called up anew before men's minds for the sake of the objects now deemed desirable.^ In any case, the same fiction is the origin both of the pseudo-Ignatius and of the pseudo- Clement ; and we may hence see how completely consistent it was with the spirit of the time, to use such names and such means as have been de- scribed in order to introduce principles, institutions, and ideas which had become practically needful. The highest idea of the episcopate, and the one in which the pseudo- Clement and the pseudo-Ignatius most thoroughly agree, is that of the bishop as the vicar of God and Christ. Now on what does this idea rest, and by what considerations is it sus- tained? The Homilies merely affirm it, when they say of the bishop, iii. 66, that 6 7rpoKa6€^o/ji€vo<; Xpiarov tottov TreTnaTevTac ; and the same is the case when in the Epistles, Magn. cap. 6, the eirL(7KoiTov tols diavoiais ey/cft/xeVof, rrjv deiav ^ovXrjaiP e^ecpuiriaev. THE HIERARCHY. 59 wliicli were the natural outgrowth of existing circumstances, the elements of a most comprehensive and thoroughgoing hierarchy. The greatness of its plan consists in the simplicity of the forms on which it is based. The fundamental form is the relation of the bishop to the congregation beneath him. However the system may develop, expand, or modify itself, this form always remains unaltered. The bishop of the smallest church, and the Pope at the highest stage of the Papacy, are in essence the same. At all stages of the hierarchy we find but a repetition of the same funda- mental form, the chief peculiarity of which consists precisely in its capacity for a boundless expansion. Though qualitatively always the same, the episcopate yet admits of great quantitative variation ; the relation of equality is also one of subordination, ascending upwards by a series of stages and intermediate members ; and thus tlie episcopate becomes a form which not only extends over the widest field, but includes within itself the capacity of a very well-articulated organism. This element of difference in a system ascending in various forms through successive steps of sub- ordination is an essential part of the idea of a hierarchy. There cannot be a hierarchy in which all the members are equal. The bishop must be more than the presbyter and the deacon, the presbyter more than the deacon; and whatever the number of stages through which the system rises to its highest point, the distinction of these three degrees is the determining type of the whole. On the one hand, as the bishoj)s stand on a level, each one being the same as that which all the rest are, the system tends to broaden its base as much as possible. On the other, since difference does exist among the bishops, it equally endeavours to gather itself together in its highest point, and to terminate its structure in a supreme unity. The principle of the subordination is not less characteristic of the ecclesiastical system than the sub- ordination itself. It is not only a hierarchical, but also a theocratic system ; and the theocratic character is likewise inherent in the simple fundamental form. The subordination demanded is an 60 CHUBCH HISTOBY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. absolute requirement ; it bears the same character of intrinsic necessity as that subordination which must be the relation of the human to the divine. The root notion of the episcopate is that the bishop is the representative of God and Christ, the organ in which the Holy Spirit, as the indwelling principle of the ecclesiasti- cal society, chiefly delivers himself. All rests on divine authority.. In the relation of the bishop to his congregation, the same relation is beheld which exists between Christ and the Church. On the one hand, it postulates an unconditional subordination, since all is grounded upon unity alone. As there is one God and one Christ, so there can be only one Church and one episcopate, and all must be simply subordinated to this unity. On the other side, however, it is a relation of piety, and all the feelings of piety which are included in the religious relation of man to God and Christ are interwoven with it. The bishop is to be the spiritual father of his church, and the members of his church are to cling to him with the confidence of children.-' If then we place before our minds the original elements of this system, we find that its ^ Tlie Apostolic Constitutions prescribe, ii. 34, tov eVtV/coTroi/ a-repyeiv 6(peiXeTe as Trarepa, but withal (poj^eladat. cos j3acn\fa, rifiav as Kvpiov. What is true of the bishop is true also of the clergy in general. In accordance with the sacerdotal ideas of the Old Testament, which Cyprian, the chief representative of the episcopal idea, adopts in their fiiUest extent, the clergy are held to be distinguished from the world by the same absolute superiority with which the bishop stands above his congregation. Therefore it is a mere degradation of their order, if they occupy themselves with worldly business and worldly things. According to Cyprian, Ep. 66, it was " pridem in concilio episcoporum statutum, ne quis de clericis et Dei ministris tutorem vel curatorem testamento suo constituat, quando singuli divino sacerdotio honorati et in clerico ministerio constituti nonnisi altari et sacrificiis deservire, et precibus atque orationibus vacare debeant. — Quae nunc ratio et forma in clero tenetur, ut qui in ecclesia Domini ordinatione clerica promoventur, — in honore sportulantium fratrum tanquam decimas ex fructibus accipientes, ab altaris sacrificiis non recedant." The decretum sacerdotum must be strictly maintained, " ne quis sacerdotes et ministros Dei altari ejus et ecclesiae vacantes ad seculares molestias devocet." The words of Cyprian express the great practical importance of this principle, and the view of the sacerdotal character of the clergy on which it rested. Compare Ep. Clem, ad Jac. c. 5, Horn. iii. 11. THE HIERARCHY. 61 essential condition is a stage of religious development at which there is felt a need to view the relation borne by Christ to the Church, as the Church's Lord, imaged in a visible representation. As the apostles took the place of Christ who sent them, so the bishops, as the successors of the apostles, could only be regarded as the representatives of Christ, PART FOURTH. CHRISTIANITY AS HIGHEST PRINCIPLE OF REVELA.TION — AND AS DOGMA. When we look back on the facts which have been passed in review, we observe two directions in which the idea of Christianity, indwelling in the Christian consciousness, realised itself. First of all, the limits within which Jewish particularism sought to confine the Christian principle of salvation had to be broken through, and Christian universalism to be firmly established. This could only be done by taking away the wall of partition between Jew and Gentile, and by regarding the whole of mankind, in its need of the Christian salvation, and its readiness to receive it, as the wide field in which the idea of Christianity was to be realised. But while Christianity thus had from the first the tendency to expand itself into universalism, at the same time it felt it to be equally necessary to maintain, along with its universal point of view, its specific contents and character, and to arrive at an adjust- ment between its desire to be universal, and its desire to be specific, i.e. personal and individual, concrete and historical. By its universalism it was transported into the wide sphere of a view of the world thoroughly penetrated with heathen elements. It was brought into the closest contact with a mode of view in which Judaism, mixed with Greek philosophical ideas, was already so much decomposed, that Christianity too, when drawn within the same circle of ideas, necessarily assumed a character more or less allied to heathen polytheism. The Christian process of TRANSITION TO DOGMA. 63 salvation was changed into a universal process of world-develop- ment, in which Christ himself became merely one of the various conditioning principles of the world. In a word, secularisation was the danger which threatened Christianity on the side of its universalism. Montanism, from its moral and religious point of view, believed that this danger must be met by breaking with the world altogether ; it made the Jewish-Messianic catastrophe of the world the principle of its position. On this side again then it became the task of the Christian mind to lead Christianity into such a path as would enable it to enter on a historical development corresponding to its original idea. When the idea of the Catholic Church was reached, all the steps found necessary on these various sides were taken. It was by this idea that all those were ani- mated who wished at once to maintain Christian universalism, and to repel all that obscured the specific character of Christianity by Jewish or heathen influences, and all that seemed to take an extreme tendency in one direction or the other. The idea of the Catholic Church existed, in the first instance, merely in the consciousness of the great majority ; and its presence in their minds led them to endeavour, and that successfully, to realise it and give it a firm consistency. But so long as the Catholic Church thus continued to acquire its shape merely by tlie negative means of forming a contrast to all inadequate Christianity, it remained nothing but a form. For this form a determinate matter must now be found. There might be much agreement as to what should be kept away and repelled in accordance with the Christian consciousness, as it uttered itself in the majority. But it was not less important to couple af&rmation with denial, and to determine positively what matter should be deemed intrinsic to the Christian consciousness itself. The Church had certainly taken a determinate form of constitution, since it had bishops, who could be regarded as the upholders and representatives of apostolic tradition and the consciousness of the Church. But this conscious- ness itself remained something very indeterminate, a mere form without matter, so long as dogma, as the matter of the apostolic 64 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. tradition, or of Cliristiau revelation, had not been brought by development and gradual elaboration to its definite conception and expression. The synod of Nicaea, which concludes the first period of the history of the development of the Christian Church, brings very clearly before us the connection between this form and this matter — the constitutional form which the Church had received in the bishops, the representatives of its unity, and dogma as the matter, which the interpreters of tradition and the organs of the consciousness of the Church were to express, and to fix as the universally accepted doctrine. This synod, as oecu.menical, is the most perfect representation of the episcopate and the Church ; and in its dogma of the homoousia it expressed the highest that is contained in the dogmatic matter of the Christian consciousness. It is thus the subject of dogma which now claims our attention. The Church would have been a mere form had it not contained within those bounds which, though firmly defined by itself, expanded equally on all sides to the broad idea of the Catholic Church, a definite matter in its Catholic dogma. It is in the doctrine of the person or the divine dignity of Christ that the whole development of dogma, in its first period, is concentrated. The greater or less prominence of all the dogmas contained in the matter of Christian belief is in proportion to their nearer or more remote relation to this chief dogma. This itself, however, highly placed as it is, is not in fact the nearest and immediate object of the Christian consciousness. For since Christ only comes in order to bring the Messianic salvation, he bears the relation of a mean to an end ; and therefore, in the development of dogma, the one is evidently conditioned by the other. We can perceive, through the whole history of dogma, how the doctrine of the person of Christ, in the various forms of its elaboration, is but the reflection, the concrete expression of the views which were held concerning the work of Christ, the import and the nature of the Messianic salva- tion wrought by him. Each age, each party, invests the person of Christ with all the determining notions which, in its opinion, it is necessary to presuppose in order to make him capable of CHRISTOLOGY OF SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 65 being, in the determinate sense in which he requires to he, the Redeemer. At the point of view taken by a critical consideration of the Gospel history, we are never at liberty to forget that what we know of Christ's doctrine generally, and of his doctrine concerning the import and dignity of his own person, only reaches us through the medium of the New Testament writers. Here also we must strictly distinguish the purely historical from the dogmatic point of view. We have to confine ourselves to the question, How is the person of Jesus portrayed in the various dogmatic conceptions found in the canonical books ? All else belongs to the category of dogmatic presuppositions and affirmations, whatever the founda- tions of these may be. First, we have the Christology of the synoptic gospels, and here it cannot be contended on any sufficient grounds that they give us the slightest justification for advancing beyond the idea of a purely human Messiah. The idea of pre-existence lies com- pletely outside the synoptic sphere of view. Nothing can show this more clearly than the narrative of the supernatural birth of Jesus. All that raises him above humanity — though it does not take away the pure humanity of his person — is to be referred only to the causality of the irvevixa aytov, which brought about his conception, or which, according to another view, descended on him at his baptism. This spirit, as the principle of the Messianic epoch, is also the element which constitutes his Messianic person- ality. The synoptic Christology has for its substantial foundation the notion of the Messiah, designated and conceived as the uto? @eov ; and all the points in the working out of the notion rest on the same supposition of a nature essentially human. God raised him from the dead, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it (Acts ii. 24). It is in itself impossible that the Messiah should fall a prey to death, because if he fell under the power of death, he would not be the Messiah. Thus even though the Messiah dies, yet death is annulled in life in him, if not in the supernatural nature of his person, yet in his Messianic dignity. VOL. II. E 66 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. In the same sense, it is part of the conception of the Messiah, that he is the Prince of Life (Acts iii. 15). The highest enunciation concerning Christ in the synoptic Christology is, that all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth (Matt, xxviii. 18) ; or that he sits at the right hand of God, — an expression which denotes his immediate share in the divine power and the divine government of the world. He is exalted to this point by his death and resur- rection. The connecting link between these two points which join heaven and earth is the Ascension, in which he is even seen to float from earth to heaven in visible form. It is obvious, that in this Christology the general point of view is the elevation of the human to the divine, and that in the con- ception of the Messiah the second of these steps always implies the first. In contrast to this point of view stands that of the Johannine Logos- idea. According to this, the substantial concep- tion of the person of Jesus is the conception of his essence as divine in itself. Here the thought travels, not from below upwards, but from above downwards, and the human is therefore only a secondary thing, and added afterwards. Between these two opposing points of view, the Christology of Paul occupies a place of its own, and we cannot fail to see that it gives us the key of the transition from the one to the other. On one side Christ is essentially man, on the other he is more than man ; and his humanity is already so enhanced and idealised, that the sense in which he is man is certainly inconsistent with the synoptic mode of view, which stands on the firm basis of his his- torical and human appearance. Christ is man, not only on one side of his being ; but simply : he is man, like Adam, and only distinguished from Adam in that the peculiar element of his being is not the natural but the spiritual. And if, notwithstanding his spiritual nature, he is man, it is a necessary consequence that both the spiritual and the natural are an integral part of human nature. Over against the one man, through whom sin and death came into the world, stands the one man Jesus Christ, in whom the grace of God is given to the many (Eom. v. 15). As PAULINE CHRISTOLOGY. 67 by one man came death, so by one man came the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv. 21). As Adam was the first man, so is Christ the second man from heaven (ver. 47).^ Christ is then essentially man, man like Adam, only man in a higher sense. The question now can only be, what higher conception we must unite with the person of Christ, while we rest on the substantial foundation of his human nature. The higher principle of the person of Christ is styled by the apostle the spiritual, the heavenly in him. By this he does not mean that a divine principle, different from human nature, descended and united with it ; on the contrary, the higher principle is only the purer form of human nature itself. Christ, as the pneumatic man, who is from heaven or of heavenly origin, is the archetypal man, who shows forth in himself the perfection of human nature. As Adam, being the earthly natural man, is the man that has passed under sin and death, so Christ, being the spiritual, heavenly man, as he in whom the lower part of human nature is lost in the higher, is the sinless man. That Christ was without sin (2 Cor. v, 21), is a notion which essentially determines the conception of him. As Adam, with sin, which first began to manifest its power in him, had also the principle of death in him, so Christ being free from sin, was also free from death. He was not only not subject to the principle of death : he had in him the contrary principle of life, the quickening Spirit. As free from sin, he would not have been bound to die : in fact it was not on his own account that he submitted to the- necessity of death, but because he took on himself the sins of men : in his thus dying, because he took on himself the sins of men, it is presupposed that aap^, apart from sin, is mortal in itself. If the crap^ of Christ was only a 6/j.oLO)fia aapKO'i d/xapTLa<;, or — since cifiapTca is not to be separated from a-ap^, aap^ being as such the seat of d/xapTca, ^ It is not unimportant for a correct compreliension of the Pauline Christology, that according to the latest critical anthorities, in 1 Cor. xv. 47, Kvpios does not belong to the text. There is thus no longer any hindrance to the immediate connection of e'^ ovpavoxi with civOpconos. Each of these terms is applied to Christ by the apostle : he is, as avdpanros, «'! ovpavov. 68 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. containiug its root and predisposed to it — a ofiocco/bua of aap^ in general/ tlien aap^ is a mere accident of Christ's nature ; its true substance can only be nrvevixa. As the apostle says simply (2 Cor. iii. 17), Christ is in himself, in his substantial essence, 'Trvevfia, spirit. The essence of spirit was conceived by the apostle as a spiritual luminous substance ; as a luminous splendour in the sense in which he speaks of the shining face of Moses (2 Cor. iii. 7 sq.). The eternal light-essence of God himself is reflected in this splen- dour of Christ. The whole relation of Christ to God rests on this, that Christ is essentially spirit, because it belongs to the spiritual light-nature of God to be reflected in a luminous splendour. Christ is therefore, as he is to irvev/xa, so also the Kvpio<; tj}? Sof?;?, essen- tially spirit and light. And he does not first become this after his exaltation, but is it essentially : for his exaltation is simply the attainment to its full reality of that which he already was. The idea of pre-existence is involved in this. The apostle can ,t^erefore only have conceived Christ, although he is supposed to have been essentially man in his pre-existing personality, as the spiritual light-form of the heavenly or archetypal man. It is an analogous representation which we find in the Christology of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, where the primal man came forth first from God, by means of the wisdom which dwelt with God from eternity, or the Holy Spirit, which, since it dwells in Christ in the highest sense, and so forms his true essence, is also called the Spirit of Christ. The apostle must therefore have assumed a twofold primal man : an earthly man, who was from the beginning €K 7779 %oi'/co9 and of psychical nature, and a heavenly archetypal ^ Where aap^ is without afiaprla, the apostle speaks only of a o/xo/w/xa aapKos, or, since crap^ and apiaprla belong to one another, of a ofxoiapa aapKos apLapTias. This mode of speech shows most clearly that he conceived afiapria as the essence of aap^ itself. Where aap^ is not a actp^ apaprlas, i.e. a aap^, part of whose essence is afiapTia, there there is nothing which can properly be called (Tap^ ; it is not a aap^ ofiaprias, and therefore not a true (rap^, but a mere 6p.oio)pa : he is only op.otos to us. The Pauline Christology makes use also of the distinction of aap^ and acofia. There is a (Tci)p.a TrvevpariKov, but not a (rap^ TTvevfiariKi], for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. xv. 44, 50). PAULINE CHRISTOLOGY. 69 man, who pre-existed in heaven, till at the appointed time he appeared in the flesh as the 8€VT€po<; av6pwiToTvos and e(TxaTos 'ASa/x date from his earthly and human manifestation ? But what can Christ have been as Tvv(vp.a, if his spiritual personality is not to be conceived in the form of human existence ? It is aflSrmed that on the foundation of that doctrine of angels which the Jews combined with the Messianic idea, there rose a mode of conception, widely adopted in the early Church, especially among the people, according to which the pre-existent subject which appeared in Jesus was an angel : and an application of this to the Pauline Christology has been attempted (Theol. Jahrb. 1848, pp. 239 sq.). But there is nothing which indicates that Paul conceived Christ as an angel or a being like an angel : nor are we justified in giving either of the two ideas — that he was a spirit, and that he was essentially man — a less important place than the other. There is unquestionably a strong probability that in the passage 1 Cor. viii. 6, the apostle meant to ascribe not only pre-existence, but creation to Christ. But on the other hand, again, it cannot be controverted, that as (^ ov ra iravra is limited and defined by the conception in 06os, so is 5i' ov TO. TTavra limited by Kvpios. The conception of Kvpios refers only to that which Christ became by his resurrection and exaltation, not to his antemimdane state. If in 1 Cor. xv. 47 Kvpios is to be rejected, this passage also makes no exception with regard to the meaning of the word Kvpios. The passages 1 Cor. X. 4, 2 Cor. viii. 9, and Kom. ix. 5, apart from the considerations given above, are not conclusive. They only show how arbitrarily the conception of Christ's Godhead has been extended within the Pauline Christology. — On the Pauline Christology generally, cf. my work Paulus, T. T. F. L. ii. 239-253. PAULINE CHRISTOLOGY. 71 from which the whole development started, was the resurrection. It was not possible to conceive the risen one, him who through his resurrection had become the conqueror over the grave, and liad entered on a higher life, without imagining him as in a state of glorification, and in the most immediate nearness to God. He thus became the subject of all those determining notions which are included in the idea of Kvpio^, as he is simply called after his exaltation. But all the attributes ascribed to him as the risen one, as exalted to the right hand of the Father, still lacked a sufficient basis as long as his glorified state after his life on earth was not coupled with one of equal elevation preceding the same. A higher view of his personality generally could only be attained if he was the same before his earthly and human mani- festation as he became after it. The majesty to which he was exalted after his death could no more be regarded as something extraordinary first granted to him by an act of God. It belonged to him in himself; it was in fact based on the essence of his personality. His human existence was therefore only a stage of transition ; that he might thereby be, in this concrete form, determined by his human existence, that which in himself he was already. The idea of pre-existence is now the chief point on which the further development of Christology turns. Its whole tendency is more and more to join to the state of pre-existence such predicates as remove as much as possible the distinction between God and Christ. Even the apostle Paul is advancing from the idea of pre-existence to that of creation. Though this predicate has still with him an indeterminate and ambiguous character, it was soon afterwards fixed all the more determinately. It was Paul, however, with whom Christology first took this higher flight ; and this was unquestionably a consequence of the higher idea he had of the office and the work of Christ. It was he who first contemplated Christianity from a higher and more universal point of view, and recognised in it the significance of a general principle that conditioned the course of the world and the process of human development. Such being his position, the view that 72 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. Christ was a superhuman and supramundane being rose before him as a necessary pre-supposition. With this was commenced the process of elevating ever more and more the conception of Christ's person, up to absolute unity with God, and of transferring to him all the analogous features which the philosophy of the age supplied. The Christology of the Apocalypse comes next in time to that of Paul. Here, too, the same canon holds good ; for, the mightier the expected catastrophe is which is to accompany Christ's coming, the higher must be the idea formed of the person of him who is to introduce it. "With this writer, as with Paul, it is through his death and resurrection that Christ arrives at the highest divine power and glory. In the apviov eacjjayfxevov that stands before the throne of God, the greatest and the least, the contraries of life and death, of heaven and earth, are united and beheld in one and the same contemplation. Not only does Christ, in the im- mediate presence of God, share a like power, and dominion, and adoration with God, but predicates are given him which seem to leave no essential distinction between him and God. He is termed Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, in the same sense in which God, the ruler of all, is called 6 mv koI 6 rjv Kol 6 epypfjievo'i. The new name (iii. 12) given to the Messiah, the same name of which it is said that no man knew it but he himself (xix. 12), is the unspeakable name of Jehovah. Indeed, not only are the seven spirits of God, in whom the power of the divine government that watches and rules over all is individualised, attributed to Christ (iii. 1) ; but he is also the apXT) T7]<; KTicredx; tov 0eov, a.hd the \o'yo<; rov Oeov (iii. 14 ; xix. 13). But all these predicates bear a mere external rela- tion to the person of the Messiah. He is certainly called Jehovah, or God in the highest sense ; but he is merely called so, — we are not justified in inferring from the name that a truly divine nature is ascribed to him. Nor does this follow from the designation of the Messiah as the \0709 tov @eou. The Xojof; rov Qeov furnishes the point of view from which the writer regards CHEISTOLOGY OF THE APOCALYPSE. 73 the whole manifestation of Jesus, the word of God being "both revealed and fulfilled by him. Christianity is itself the X0709 Tou ©eov (i. 9) ; all that composes the apocalyptic visions is the \ojot dXrjdivol Tov Qeov (xix. 9). It is Jesus who reveals the counsel of God, and who also executes it. What has been once spoken as the counsel of God must be brought to pass : here, too, Jesus is the \6'yoiph. Haer. xxx. 3, 16. * Upon this form of early Christology, and the data thereon, cp. the disserta- tion of J. Helweg, Die Vorstellung von der Praexistenz Christi in der altesten Kircbe, Theol. Jahrb. 184S, 144 sq. ; Hilgenfeld, die apostol. Viiter, 169 sq. TEE LOGOS-IDEA IN THE SECOND CENTURY. 87 2. Even when the Logos-idea begins to be applied to Christ, it appears in so uncertain and indefinite a form, that we can scarcely go so far as to identify it with the Johannine conception. We are not to regard it as a distinct dogmatic statement when we find Clement of Eome saying, in his first Epistle, that God ev Xo^m Tr]. 108 sq. '^ Ad Ephes. vii. 19; ad Magnes. vii. 8. 88 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. criminately applied to this divine being of the second rank.^ It thus appears that the Logos-idea was current and well known in the Christian Church at the time of Justin ; but the writings of the same Father also show plainly that the true and original source of the current conception was not the Gospel of John. It would otherwise be quite inconsistent with the weighty significance which he attached to the idea, that he should utterly ignore the supreme authority of the Gospel in this direction. Though we do not allege that this silence was caused by the non-existence of the Gospel, it can only have arisen from want of acquaintance with it ; and this again cannot be explained, if we suppose that the Gospel had long been credited with apostolic authenticity. 3. But not only did the Logos-idea give an exact dogmatic determination of the conception which M'as connected with the divine majesty of Christ : it contained an element which involved a definite distinction between the Christian and the Jewish con- sciousness of God. So long as the divine element in Christ was conceived under the indeterminate notion of the Spirit, or in the form of angelology, there was no danger of a collision with the strictly monarchian Jewish idea of God. But when the Logos- idea appeared, notwithstanding that it was an outcome of the Alexandrian philosophy of religion, such an antagonism was in- evitable. It is an essential part of the Johanniue doctrine of the Lof OS, that he is God ; and even Justin, though he has a much lower view of the Logos, expressly sets forth that he is God." Now this is the point at which an opposition arose between the two forms of Christology — one of which continued Jewish, while the other was developing into Catholic dogma. Thus the Christology of the pseudo- Clementine Homilies at once states the Judaistic view of Christ's person in its most developed form, and not less characteristically seizes, in all its sharpness, the point at which the Christology that rests on the Logos-idea seems to infringe the 1 Cf. Helweg, 258 sq. Hilgenfeld, Krit. Uaters. liber die Evang. Justin's, etc., 1850 297 sq. Das Evang. uud die Briefe Joh. 1849, 130 sq. ' Apol. i- (i3 : os koi Xoyoy TT/jcorciroxoy wv tov Qmv Kai Of os viTafi-)(ii. THE LOGOS-IDEA. 89 monarchy of God, and simply refuses to recognise a son of God who is himself God. According to the Homilies, the Lord, as he did not teach other Gods besides the Creator, so likewise did not call himself God ; and rightly named him blessed, who called him the Son of God, of the Creator of the Universe/ We can fancy ourselves transported into the time of the Arian controversies, when, in the same passage of the Homilies, the antithetical concep- tions of "unbegotten" and "begotten" are applied to determine the distinction between the Father and the Sou in such a way that the two are separated by a gulf which cannot be bridged over. As the Son is thus simply another than the Father, the same name of God may not be given to him ; for the begotten cannot have a like name with the unbegotten, even though the begotten be of like essence with the begetter. The name of God is only to belong to that which is peculiar to him, and simply incommunicable. The Johannine principle of the Godhead of the Logos, to which alone this polemic can refer, thus possessed no authority for those who adhered firmly to the strict Jewish conception of God. It is therefore clear that the Logos-idea belongs to a religious sphere in which the barriers of the Jewish consciousness of God had widely given way. Still, by the Johannine doctrine, the Sou, or the Logos held to be God, had been so subordinated to the infinitely greater Father, that the distinction between the two was sufficiently broad. Nevertheless, so soon as they were placed on sucli an equality, though but in one point, as the common name expresses, the goal of the further development of dogma was at once indicated, and the movement that had once begun could not pause, till their identity was thought out and established on every side as thoroughly as possible. We have thus given a general indication of the direction in which the dogma of the Godhead of Christ proceeded in its further course under the guidance of the Logos-idea. It was under this idea, as a general fundamental form, that the divine element of Christ was now conceived ; it was by means of this that the dog- matic consciousness sought to establish more precisely the different ^ Horn. xvi. 15. 90 CHURCH HISTORY OF FIRST THREE CENTURIES. points which are contained in that conception. Though it cannot be shown that Justin was acquainted with the fourth Gospel, the influence of the Johannine Logos-idea can be traced, ever more clearly and definitely, in his immediate successors, Tatian, Athen- agoras, and Theophilus. But the idea has two sides : the first of these, the identity of the Logos with the Father, is confronted by the second and not less important one, viz., the personality of the Logos himself. It is the latter of these two sides that these Fathers chiefly labour to define. If the Logos was the Son of God, and if the Son was to be conceived in the full reality of his existence as such, it was necessary to gain a definite notion of his com- mencement. The Logos, as the Son, could only have originated or have been begotten from the essence of God. This origination must have taken place at a definite point of time ; and this could only be the same time at which all things first entered on exist- ence. The same creative word which called all things into exist- ence is also the word of God, on which rests the conception of the Logos as the Son. Again, though the Logos, as the Son, originated at a definite point of time, and by a determinate act of God, still it is possible to suppose that he existed before that time as the Logos, and afterwards assumed a different sort of existence as the Son. The twofold meaning of the word Logos, in fact, led of itself to the distinction of the \6yo'i evBi,d6eTo<; and the \6va, iraTepa vlov, 6eov b'lKaiov. These words are not literally found in any of the fragments hitherto known, though those given by Schleiermacher in his dissertation on Heraclitus (Nos. 38 and 51 Philos. und Vermischt. Schriften, ii. pp. 80 and 122) contain some similar expressions. But the word s fv Ti to ep(f>av€S Koi to d(}iap€S NOETUS—SABELLIUS. 95 thought it not illogical to hold, that the same subject unites in itself opposite determinations, that as the Father it is invisible, unoriginated, immortal, but as the Son the opposite of all this, that God as the Father and the Son is both the one and the other, when and how he will. ISToetus based this assertion, apparently, on a con- ception of the world, according to which the one essence of God both goes forth into the ever-varying diverse multitude of phenomena, and out of it back again into himself But the general view which underlay the teaching of Noetus, and perhaps that of Praxeas before him, is first presented plainly in the teaching of Sabellius. For a correct conception of the doctrine of Sabellius (which Neander also has stated incorrectly in an essential point), the chief requisite is to grasp the meaning which, in distinction from his predecessors, he assigned to the Logos-idea. The peculiarity of Praxeas and Noetus is that they make God become Father of the Son without the interposing link of the Logos. Sabellius, in his development of the idea of the Trinity, on the other hand, not ofioXoyovfjLevcos indp^ov. This is the chief point of contact between Heraclitus and Noetus. The doctrine of the latter is thus stated, Philos. p. 284 : ore fiev ovv fiTj yfjivrjTo 6 narrip (so long as the One had not yet become the Father of the Son) StKat'co? TTarfjp irpoa-rjyopfuTo (he was rightly called the Father of the world). Cp. 283 : \iyovcn — eva Ka\ tov avTov Qeov elvai ndvTcov brjpiovpyov Km Trarepa, ore be rjvSoKrjaev yeveaiv VTropelvai, yevvrjdels 6 vlos eyevfro avTos iavTov ov^ erepov. Ovtcos yap 8oKe'i povapx'ic-v crvviardv, iu Koi to avro (pdcTKcov vndpyfiv narepa koi vlou — avTov i^ eavrov, ovopari pep irarepa koX vlov Kokovpevov Kara Xpdvaiv rpoT!r)v. In this rpoTrfj ■^(^povaiv is involved the fundamental view of the Sabellian npoacoTra. In order to express the unity of the Father and the Son, of the Invisible and the Visible, in the strongest terms, the author of the Philos. adds also (284) : Tovtov Trddei ^vXov TTpoanayevTa, Koi eavTco to nvevpa Trapadovra, CLTTodavovra koi pfj dirodavovTa, Koi eavrov rfj TpiTrj fjpepa dvaarrjcrai'Ta, tov ev pvr}pe'i