These modem inquiries, however, earnest, profound, and valuable as they are, have not yet led to definite and generally-accepted results. English and Amer- ican theology have not been affected by them to any considerable extent; Dr. Shedd, in his able though in- complete History of Christian Doctrine^ even ignores them altogether, and pronounces the Chalcedonian symbols the nephu ultra of Christological knowledge, '* beyond which it is probable the human mind is un- able to go in the endeavor to unfold the mystery of Christ's complete person" (i, 408). But there certainly have been very important advances made within the last thirty years hi the critical history of the life of Christ, and in the numifold exhibition of his perfect humanity, which itself is an overwhelming proof of his divinity. (For a review of the recent Christological speculations, see Domer, in his large work on the his- tory of Christology, ii, 1260 sq., Engl, trans., div. 2d, iii, 100 sq., and in several dissertations upon the im- mutability of God in the Jahrbticherfur Deutsche The- oloffie^ 1856 and 1858; also Woldemar Schmidt, Das
Dogma vom GoUmensekesiy mit Beaiehtmg aufdie mmmlm L6sungsvertuche der Gegaudtse [Leipzig, 1865].)
III. CHRISTOLOGICAL HERESIES. The nu- merous Christological errors may be divided into three classes, according as they relate either to the divine et to the human nature of Christ, or to the union of the two. Ebionism, Socinianism, and Rationalian, in its various shapes, deny, either in whole or in part, th^ divinity of Christ ; Gnosticism, Manidueism, ApoDlna- rianbm, deny, m(»e or less, his real humanity ; while Nestorianism, Entychianism, Monophysitism, and Mo- notheletism admit the Godhead and manhood of ChrBt, but place them in a false relation to each other. We present them here in chronological order.
1. Ebionism (see that article), the earliest Christian heresy, was essentially Jewish, and looked upon Chris- tianity merely as a perfected Judaism, npon the Gos- pel as a new law, and upon Christ as a second Moses. Origen derived the name of the sect from the poverty of thehr doctrine of Christ ClT^^K, poor) ; bnt they re- garded themselves as the genuine followers of the poor Christ. They held that Jesus was, indeed, the prom- ised Messiah, the Son of David, and the supreme law- giver of the Church ; yet a mere man, the son of Jo- seph and Mary, and that his death had no atoning effi- cacy. With this were closely connected other here- sies. The pseudo-demetUme EomiUes (see Clemes- TiNBs) differ from the ordinary Ebionism by peculiar speculative and semi-Gnostic ideas, and teach that Christ was the last and highest representative of the primitive religion which appeared in the seven pillan of the world, Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Christ. These are, in reality, only different incarnations of the same Adam, or primitiTe man, the trae prophet of God. Christianity and Mo- saism are identical, and both coincide with the religion of Adam. Whether a man believe in Moses or Chrkt is all the same, provided he blaspheme neither. Chris- tianity is an advance only in extending this primitive religion to the Gentiles (comp. Schliemann, J)i6 Gem- enUnen und der Ebionitismus, 1844, p. 362-5^2).
2. Gnosticism, which flourished in the second cen- tury (see article), varied in its Christology according to its numerous schools of Cerinthus, Basilidea, YalentiDe, Marcion, etc., and generally deidt more in vague no- tions and speculative fancies than in solid, deariy-de- fined doctrines and arguments. But its Christology was a radical denial of the mystery of the incamatioD, and therefore anti-Christian, according to the criterion of John (John i, 4), although from a view the very op- posite of Ebionism. While the latter denied the di- vinity of Christ, Gnosticism was docetistie (hence Do- oetism\ i. e. it denied the realness of Christ's humaa nature, and resolved it into an empty show and decep- tive appearance (ddKijatCf ^avrafrfid)^ or a transient vision, after the manner of the Indian Mythology. The real Christ, or Saviour, is one of the sons or di- vine powers, which either assumed this spectral form of humanity, or united himself temporarily, at the bap- tism in Jon^, with the man Jesus of Nazareth, to forsake him again at the passion. But he entered into no real contact with a human body which, as a part of matter (OXij), was regarded as essentially evil and antagonistic to God ; he was not actually bom, he did not suffer and die, nor rise again. He appeared like a meteor frt>m the sky, to disappear again. Reduced to a modem philosophical conception, the Gnostic Christ is, in the end, nothing more than the ideal spirit of man himself, the Christ of Strauss and modem pan- theism. Yalentinus, the most ingenious among tbe Gnostics, distinguished the avut Xpurro^, or heavenlj Christ ; the outTTjpf or Jesus ; and the kut*m» XpunoCy the Jewish Messiah, who passed through the body of Mary as water through a pipe, and was crucified by the Jews, although, having no material body, he did not actually sufi^. With him Soter, the proper re-
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r, united himself at the baptism in Jordan, to annoanoe his divine gnosis on earth, and lead spiritual peraoDa to perfection.
8w The Manichjcan system, which we know best firom the writings of St. Augustine (who himself be- longed to the sect for nine years, and was thereby bet- ter able to refnte it), was essentially Gnostic and Do- oetistic, and by its perverted view of body and matter aa essentially evil, wholly excluded the idea of an in- carnation of God. The Manicheans held that the apostles corrupted and £dsiiied the real teachings of Christ, but that Mani, the promised Paraclete, has re- stored them. Traces of tiie Manichssan heresy run through a number of sects of the Middle Ages.