12. Adoptianism (about 787). — The incessant and fierce strife of the early Church with respect to the na- ture of Christ finally culminated in the A doiMan contro- versy. According to the views of this sect, in his di- vine nature, Christ is the true Son of God ; but as re- spects his human nature, he is the Son of God only by adoption — "his divinity according to the former was proper, but according to the latter nature nominal and titular" (Herzog, EncyUop.).
13. tSoriinanism, Unitarianism, and Rationalism present no new phase of heresy. They are simply resurrected forms t>f error that had again and again been refuted It may be questioned whether the inventive mind of German Neology has presented upon the incarnation any feature of error essentially new. The subtle minds of Arius, SabeUius, and other kindred philosophers of the early Church have explored every avenue of doubt, and left no new openings into which heretical error can
possibly thrust itself. The most that modern specula- tions have done has been to revivify dead theories of the past, and clothe them with " the empty abstractioiis of impersonal idea." See Christology, vol. ii, p. 282. As a fair illustration of the mystical speculations with which tlie metaphysical theology of modern Germany has overlaid the doctrine of the incarnation, we quote from Hegel (Iteligionsphilosophie, ii, 2G1) : '' That which first existed was the idea in its simple imiversaUty, the Father; the second is the particular, the idea in its manifestation, the Son — to wit, the idea in its extcnial existence, so that the external manifestation is clianged into the first, and known as the divine idea, the identity of the divine with the human. The third is this con- sciousness, God as the Holy Spiiit, and this spirit in his existence is the Chiurch." According to Lessmg, " This doctrine (of the Trinity) will lead human reason to ac- knowledge that God cannot possibly be imderstood to be one by that reason to which aU finite things are one ; that his unity must also be a transcendental unity which does not exclude a kind of plurality." To Schelling " it is clear that the idea of Trinity is absurd, unless it be considered on speculative grounds The incar- nation of God is an eternal incarnation ;" and by Fichte the Son is regarded as God attaining to a conscinus- ness of himself in man. See, farther, Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, ii, 384-420. INIarheineke, who in theolog- ical obscurities was an apt disciple of his master Hegel, thus discourses of the incarnation (Grvndkhren d. Christ- lichen Doymatik, § 325, 326) : " As spirit, by renouncing individuality, man is in truth elevated above himself, without having abandoned the human nature ; as spirit renouncing absoluteness, God has lowered himself to hu- man nature, without having abandoned his existence as divine Spirit. The unity of the divine and himian na- ture is but the unity m that Spirit whose existence is the knowledge of the truth with which the doing of good is identical. This spirit, as God in the human na- ture, and man in the divine nature, is the God-man. The man wise in divine holmess, and holy in divine wisdom, is the God-man. As a historical fact, this un- ion of God with man is manifest and real in the person of Jesus Christ ; in him the divine manifestation has be- come perfectly human. The conception of the God- man, in the historical person of Jesus Christ, contains in itself two phases in one : First, that God is manifest only through man, and in this relation Christ is as j'et placed on an equality with all other men ; he is the Son of Man, and therein at first represents only the possibility of God becoming man ; secondly, that in this man, Je- sus Christ, God is manifest as in none other; this man- ifest man is the manifest God ; but the manifest God is the Son of God, and in this relation Christ is God's Son ; and this is the actual fulfilment of the possibiUty or promise ; it is the reality of God becoming man." For farther quotations from German Rationalists, see Man- sel, Limits of Religious Thought, p. 154-163, 378-383.
AVhile, as respects the question of antecedency, the propriety of introducing Swedenborg in the company of Rationalists might be iiiiestiimt d. we regard his views on the ulcarnation as entitling him to consideration in this connection. "He taught that, mstead of a trinity o{ j}ej-so7}s (set forth in the symbols of the Church), wo must hold a trinity of the person, by which he under- stood that that which is divine in the nature of Christ is the Father, that the divine which is united to the human is the Son, and the divine which proceeds from him is the Holy Spirit,'" etc. (Hagenbach, Hist ofDoct, ii, 419). For the literature of Rationalism and its po- lemics, consult Hagenbach, Encyclop. dtr Theologischen Wissenchaften, p. 90-93. We cainiot but suggest that aU speculations upon the incarnation, which on the one hand rob Christ of his divinity as the true God, or on the other of his humanity as truly man, subject them- selves to the severe strictures of Coleridge (Wo7-l-s, Am. edit. V, 552 ; comp. also v, 447) : " That Socinianism is not a religion, but a theori-, and that, too, a very pemi-