1st. The Manichaaan heresy, disseminated by Manes, one of the converted Magi, who, during the third century taught a mixed system of religious philosophy, adapting the historical facts of Christianity to the peculiar principles of the Persian philoso- phy. He taught that Christ and the Holy Ghost were immediate emanations from the eternal God, superior to all creatures, and that the Christ of history was this spiritual being, who appeared among the Jews in the shadow or appearance of a material body, which existed only in the perception of men. As Manes taught that matter is essentially evil, and that Christ appeared for the very purpose of delivering human souls from their entanglement in matter, he necessarily also taught that Christ's human body was only an appearance assumed for the purpose of making his presence known to man as at present organized.
2d. The Apollinarian heresy, disseminated by Apollinaris the younger, bishop of Laodicea, in the fourth century. He taught the orthodox doctrine concerning the trinity, and further that the
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Eternal Word, second person of the trinity, became incarnate by taking to himself a true human body. On the other hand he denied that Christ had a human soul, since the place of a soul in his person was occupied by his divinity. In his view, then, the person of Christ embraced (1.) the Eternal Word, (2.) a V^7?? or principle of sensitive animal life ; and (3.) a true human body— but no rational human soul.
3d. The Nestorian heresy, charged upon Nestorius, a Syrian by birth, and bishop of Constantinople, during the fifth century, by his enemy, Cyril, the arrogant bishop of Alexandria. Cyril obtained a judgment against Nestorius in the Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, to the effect that he separated the two natures of Christ so far as to teach the coexistence in him of two distinct persons, a God and a man, intimately united. But it is now, however, judged most probable by Protestant historians that Nes- torius was personally a brave defender of the true faith, "and that the misrepresentations of his enemies were founded only upon his uncompromising opposition to the dangerous habit then promi- nently introduced of calling the Virgin Mary the mother of God, because she was the mother of the human nature of Christ.
4th. The Eutychian heresy, disseminated by Eutiches, an abbot of a convent in Constantinople in the fifth century, was precisely the opposite extreme to that charged upon Nestorius. He taught " that Christ was truly God and truly man, united in one person, but that these two natures after their union did not remain two distinct natures, but constituted one compound nature." — Mosheim's Eccle. Hist.
5. While the Lutheran Church in her first standards affirm all the points of the orthodox doctrine as to the constitution of Christ's person, (see Augsburg Confession, article 3d,) yet, in order to maintain their doctrine of consubstantiation, or the lit- eral local presence of Christ's body and blood, with, in and under the bread and wine of the sacrament, many of her theologians have used language on this subject very much assimilated to the Eutychian heresy above defined. They teach that while Christ's single person consists of two distinct natures, yet, in their union, the human body and soul participate in divine attributes, e. g., his human soul participates in the omniscience, and his body in the omnipresence of his divine nature, etc. This doctrine (com-
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municatio idiomatum) was opposed by Melancthon, but affirmed by the Formula of Concord, generally adopted circum, 1850.
This imagination is inconsistent (1.) with the clearly revealed fact that the two natures in Christ are distinct, i. e., that he ever remains truly man as well as truly God. For, if his human soul • possesses divine attributes, it is no longer a human soul. (2.) With many passages of Scripture, which directly assert that his human nature ever continued subject to those limitations, as to knowledge, space and time, etc., which intrinsically belong to it as a creature, and as human. — Matt, xxviii., 5, 6 ; Mark xiii., 32 ; Luke ii., 52 ; Acts iii., 21 ; Heb. viii., 4.
16. How can it be shown that the doctrine of the incarnation is a fundamental doctrine of the Gospel ?
1st. This doctrine, and all the elements thereof, is set forth in the Scriptures with preeminent clearness and prominence.