4. Ante-Nicene UifirABiANisM, or Monabchiah- isif. — ^The Antitrinitarians of the third century must be divided into two distinct classes : (a) The raticnal- itHc or dynamic Monarchians denied the divinity of Christ, or explained it as a mere power (dvvafUQ)f al- though they generally admitted his supernatural gen- eration by the Holy Spirit. To these belong the Alo- oiAivB, Theodotits and the Theodotiaks, Abtemon and the Artemonites, and Paul op Samosata. (See the several articles.) (6) The PcUripauiana (so called first by Tertullian) held, in connection with their idea of the divine unity or monarchy, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, but they sacrificed his independent personality to the divinity, and merged it into the es- sence of the Father, so that the Father was asserted to have suffered and died on the cross, which is absurd. This school was represented by Praxeas, Nobtds, Callistus (Pope Callixtus I), Bertllus of Bostra, and, in connection with a very original and i^nious doc^ine of the Trinity, by S abellids, all of me third century. (See the separate articles on these heretics, and the relevant sections of the Doctrine histories of Mtbischer, Hagenbach, Keander, Baur, Beck, etc.)
5. Ariaicisx, so called after Arius, presbyter of Alexandria (f 886), shook the Church to its very base during the greater part of the fourth century, and call- ed forth the first two cscumenical councils, viz. Nicsa, 825, and Constantinople, 88T. Its doctrine was, that Christ is a middle being between God and man, a sort of demi-god, who pre-existed before this world, and who created this world, yet was himself created out of nothing, the first creature of God, and consequently of a different essence (ircpo-ovtrtoc), and not eternal (jcrifffia i^ ohx Svrutv^ ify iron (ht ovk fjv). Against this view the Nicene Creed asserts that Christ is *' God of God, Li^t of Light, very God of very God,, begot- ten, not made, being of one substance (o/io-ovcrtoc) with the Father." (On the history of ancient and modem Arianism and its literature, comp. the articles Ariakism in vol. i, p. 888-898 ; Ath anasius, i, 505- 608 ; also SchafTs Eistory of the ChrisHan Churchy iii, 616-670.)
6. Sexi-Arianism is an inconsistent middle doc- trine between the Arian heresy and the Atlianasian or Kicene orthodoxy. It asserts the similarity of Christ to the Father (pfwi-ovaia — a very elastic term), in op- position to the Nicene co-equality {pfwovtria) and the Arian difference of substance (kripo-owria). It was a strong political church party, under the emperor Con- stantius (f 361^ uid was led by Eusebius, bishop of Nloomedia, but it disappeared before the second oecu- menical council in 881, which marked the final down- iUl of Arianism within the limits of the Roman em- pire, while it continued to linger, without vitality, among the barbarians till the seventh century.
7. Apollinarianism is a partial denial of the hu- manity, as Arianism of the divinity of Christ Apolli- naris the younger, bishop of Laodicea(died about 890), otherwise orthodox, and highly esteemed for his learn- ing and piety, ascribed to Christ a human body (putfio) and a human (animal) soul (xj/vxr^ d\oyoQ)y but not a human spirit or reason (^t^c) ^oyucfjf anima rationalis, vovt, irvivfAo); putting the divine Logos in the place
of the human reason. He wished to secure a true in- carnation and vital unity of the eternal Word with the human nature, but at the expense of the most impor- tant constituent in man, and thus he reached, instead of the idea of the God^mian, ^tav^punroQy only the idea of a Btb^ (Tapico66pog (the very opposite of tiie Nesto- rian dv^ptairoQ ito^opog). This heresy was condemn- ed by a coundl at Alexandria in 862. (For particulars, see art. Apolunarib, vol. i, p. 296, 297 ; and Schaff, Church Hittory, vol. iii, p. 708-714.)
8. Nestorianism, from Nestorius, patriarch of Con- stantinople, who died in exile about A.D. 440, had its roots in the Antiocliian school of theology, of which Nestorius was a pupil, and agitated the Church with great violence firom 428-451. Nestorius believed that Christ was ftiUy God and fhlly man, but he put the two natures only into an external mechanical relation- to each other (vwd^tta^ affinity, intercourse, attach- ment, as distinct from cvuxti^, true interior union). He pressed the distinction of the two natures at the ex- pense of the unity of the person. Hence he took great offence at the term Mother of God {^iordKoCj Dapara, Mater De%)y which then began to be applied to the Vir- gin Mary, and has since passed into the devotional and theological vocabulary of the Greek and Latin Church. He denounced the term as heathenish, absurd, and blasphemous, since the eternal Godhead could not be bom in any sense whatever. This gave rise to the Nestorian controversy, in which the violent Cyril of Alexandria took the most prominent part, as the cham- pion of the honor of the Holy Virgin and the doctrine of a real incarnation, although with a decided leaning to the opposite extreme of Monophysitism. See art. Ctril of Alexandria. Nestorius was condemned by the third oecumenical council, held at Ephesus in 481, and deposed from the sacerdotal office ; but his name and doctrine are perpetuated to this day in the sect of the Nestorians. (See the articles Nestorius and Nestorians, and the literature below.)
9. EuTTCHiANiSM, SO Called from Eutyches (q. v.), an aged presbyter and archimandrite of Constantinople (died soon after 451), is the exact counterpart of Nes* torianism, and presents the consistent development of the Alexandrian school of theology as opposed to the Antiochian. Eutyches likewise held Christ to be the God-man as well as Nestorius, but he pressed the unity of person to the exclusion of the distinction of the two natures. He denied that two natures could be spoken of c^fter the incarnation. The human na- ture was absorbed in the divine by that act, or deified by the personal Logos, so that even his body was un- like ours, of a heavenly character and substance (a (Tutfia dv^pofrrovy but not a awfux dvBpwmvov), Hence it was proper to say, God is bom, God suffered, God was crucified and died. The strongest opponent of this view was Theodoret, the well-known Church his- torian, a friend of Nestorius. At first Eutychianism triumphed at the Bobber Synod, so called, which was held at Ephesus A.D. 449, under the lead of the vio- lent patriarch Dioscurus of Alexandria, who inherited all the bad and none of the good qualities of his pred- ecessor Cyril. But the fourth oecumenical council, held at Chalcedon (near Constantinople) A.D. 451, re- versed this decision, condemned the Eutychian doc- trine as heresy, and set forth in clear and precise terms the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ, main- taining with equal decision the distinction of natures against Eutyches, and the unity of person against Nes- torius. (See sub. 1, 1. above.) In this triumph of the orthodox faith, Leo I, bishop of Rome, had an impor- tant share, and his dogmatic letter to Flavian of Con- stantinople was made the basis of the synodical deci- sion.