he appeared to just men of old. Therefore it is that, according to the same account, as Neander says, ' there is one God the Father, who appears or reveals himself when he will, and is invisible when he will : he is visi- ble and invisible, begotten and unbegotten ;' and we may add, is mortal and immortal. The subsequent state- ments, it is true, refer these positions to the supposed incarnation of the Father, but it may be asked whether that supposed incarnation, with its consequences, is not in accordance with a presupposed attribute of passibility in the Deity itself." This charge seems reasonable, too, when we consider that '• on no other supposition can the derivation of Noetianism from the doctrine of Heraclei- tus be made good, a derivation which Hippolytus insists upon very strongl}% The original ^^rinciple of the uni- verse Heracleitus believed to be living ethereal tire, self- kindled and self-extinguished. In the following pas- sage he asserted, as Hippolytus states, that the primal world is itself the Demiurge and Creator of itself: 'God is day, night, summer, winter, war, peace, surfeit, fam- ine.' Noetus says that the universe is divisible and indivisible; generated and ungenerated; mortal and immortal; reason, eternity, Son, Father, justice, God. In this passage the manifestations or developments of the Primal Principle in time are contrasted with its nature and existence in eternity. The derivation of Noetian doctrine from the doctrine of Heracleitus will scarcely hold good unless Noetus be understood to at- tribute to the Godhead itself that which Heracleitus at- tributed to the Primal Principle. Whence, after quot- ing the pantheistic passages from Heracleitus, Hip- polytus stated the Noetian doctrine that, according to the same account, the Father is unbegotten and begot- ten, immortal and mortal. It is not to be inferred that to be unbegotten and begotten, to be immmortal and mortal, was attributed by Noetus to the Godhead itself, independently of the supposed incarnation of the God- head ; in short, that he held the Father to be visible and passible, so that there was required the addition to the creed which was made by the Church of Aquileia, affirming the Father to be invisible and impassible. A further proof of this is found in the twelfth anathema of the Synod of Sirmium, A.D. 351, which, summoned to deal with Photinus, condemned the various errors of the Sabellian school. It can hardly be doubted that the following words were directed against the Noetians, who were Sahdliani ante Sabellium: 'Si quis unicum Filium Dei crucifixum andiens dealitatem ejus corrup- tionem vel passibilitatem aut demutationem aut demi- nutionem vel interfectionera sustinuisse dicat : anathe- ma sit.' The Monarchian controversy arose from the intrusion into Christian doctrine of heathen philosophy ; and the affiliation of Noetus to Heraclitus is a strong proof of the truth of this assertion. In the Eefutation no notice is taken of that which is mentioned in the Discourse, and by Epiphanius, namely, that Noetus al- leged himself to be Closes, and his brother to be Aaron — or, as Philaster gives the assertion, Elias; and it was probably nothing more than an arrogant comparison."
From Hippolytus {Ref. ix, 2 ; Wordsworth, Hipp, and his Age, p. 84-91) we learn that Epigonus, a disciple of Noetus, aided by Cleomenes, a disciple of his own, disseminated the heresy at Kome in the episcopate of Zephyrinus, and that Zephyrinus, an illiterate and covetous man, was bribed into licensing Cleomenes as a teacher, and then became his convert. Irresolute, however, as well as ignorant — governed generallj' by his successor Callistus, who tried to hold a balance between the orthodox and heretics, but acted upon now by Cleomenes, now bj' Sabellius — Zephyrinus was swayed to and fro. There was an endless contlict and confusion thmuL^hout the remainder of his long epis- copate (see Jlilnian, Ldl. Chrisl. I, i. ."iS, ed. 1867).
The time at which Noetus formed his heretical school at Smyrna must lie gathered from this history, for the date assigned by Epiphanius is clcarlv inadmissible. The tenor of tlic narrative of Hippolytus leads to the
conclusion that Zephyrinus fell into heresy some time before his death, which was in A.D. 219. Allowance must be made for the action of Epigonus and Cleomenes before Zephyrinus joined them, and for that of Epigo- nus alone. Consequently the establishment of the Noetian school may be well placed at A.D. 205-210; and Praxeas, who came to Rome in the time of Victor (A.D. 192-201), was probably one of the early dis- ciples of Noetus. Pope Callixtus, too, was guilty of the Noetian heresy, for he taught tov \6yov aiiTuv ilvat, v'luv, aiiTOV Kui -naTtfia, ovoixaai fxiv (Cval) KaXov/xi- vov, 'iv C£ uv, TO TTVivna dtiiaipiToi'. The one per- son is indeed nominally, but not in essence, divided (tv TOVTO TrpoawTTOv ovoixan fxiv ixtpi^untvov, ovaia d' ov). Father and Son are not two Gods, but one ; the Father, as such, did not suffer, but he " suffered with" the Son {Philos, ix, 12: tvv Trartpa av/JTrtTroi'Srivai r(,J vl(^ ov , . . ■Kf.Tzov^ivai). It does not appear that there was any attempt to maintain the sect by a sep- arate episcopal succession ; and in Augustine's time the name of Noetus was almost unknown. See Hip- polytus, Sermo contra hceresin Noeii, in Fabricius, 0pp. Ilijipolyti, ii, 5 sq. ; Epiphanius, Hayes, lib. vii, vol. i, p. 479; Theodoret, Hceret. Fahular. lib. iii, c. 3; 0pp. iv, 227; Mosheim, Commentaries, ii, 210 sq. ; Schaff, History of the Christian Church, i, 291; Neander, Ch. Hist, i, 584 ; ejusd. Dogmas, p. 1G4 sq. ; Bull, On the Trinity ; CeiUier, Hist, des A iiteurs EccUs. ii, 342 sq. ; Pressense, Dogma, p. 174 sq. ; Augusti, Dogmengesch. p. 43; Baur, Dreieiniglceitslehre, i, 254-256; Liddon, Di- vinity of Christ, p. 15, 425 ; Hagenbach, Hist, of Doc- trines, I, 60 sq. ; Brit, and For. Evangel. Rev. Jan. 1863, art. ii. See Noetians. (J. H.W.)