John X, 28-30, "I and my Father are one." These words are not to be mulerstood to denote so much an equality of nature as unanimity of feeling and purpose. Still the passage is (piite remarkable; because Christ professes to do his work in common with his Father; and that is more than any man, prophet, or even angel is ever said in the Bible to do. That being one with God, therefore, which Jesus here asserts for himself is something peculiar, which belongs to him only as he is a being of a higher nature.
Tit. ii, 13, "We expect the glorious appearance," etc. In this passage, since too is omitted before cwTtjpoc, both peydXov Otoi' and moTiipog must be cr)nstrued in apposition with 'Ujaoii XpiuToi'. Moreover, iTrabai'eia is the word by which the solemn coming of Christ is appropriately designated.
In some of the texts in which Christ is called the Son of God, the name is used in three dift'erent senses — [1] Messiah or king, a title very commonly given to the ]\Iessiah by the Jews (see Matt, xvi, 16; Luke ix, 20; ]\Iatt. xxvii, 40; Luke xxiii,35; see also Mark xiii, 32; 1 Cor. xv, 28); [2] the higher nature of Christ (John v, 17 sq. ; x.oO, 33; xx, 31; Rom. i, 3, 4); [3] he is also called the Son of God (Luke i, 3o), to designate the immediate power of God in the miraculous pro- duction of his hinnan nature.
(Ij.) Texts in which divine attributes and works are ascribed to Clirist. It is not necessary to find texts to prove that all the divine attributes are ascribed to Christ. These attributes cannot be separated; and if one of them is ascribed to (Hirist in the Bible, the con- clusion is inevitable that he must possess all the rest. The following attributes and works are distinctly as- cribed to Christ in the Scriptures:
[i.] Eternity (John i, 1 ; viii, .58; xvii, .5: Col. i, 17).
[ii.] Creation and preservation (ft)ie world (John i, 1-3, 10; Col.i. 16; Heb. i. 10 [where Psa. cii, 26 is quoted and applied to Christ J ; ii, 10).
[iii.] Omnipotence is ascribed to Christ (Phil, iii, 21) ; omniscience ( Matt, xi, 27 ). He is described as the seai'cher of hearts, etc. (1 Cor. iv, 5).
(c.) Texts in which divine honor is required for Christ. The following are the principal texts of this class : John, v, 23, " All men should honor the Son, even
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as they honor the Father;" Acts i, 24; vii, 59; 2 Cor. xii, 8, where Christ is approaclieil in prayer; ami those ill which the apostles refer to Christ the texts of the Old Test, that speak of the honor and worship of God, e. i;. Heb. i, tj from I'sa. xcvii, 7 ; also Kom. xiv, 1 1 from Isa. xlv, 3; I'hil. ii, 10; 2 Cor. v, 8-11 ; 2 Tim. iv, 17, 18.
(3.) The third point in the discussion of this doctrine is the personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit; for a foil discussion of which see Holy Ghost.
n. Ilistorii of the Doctrine. — Respecting the marine?- in which the Father, the Son. and the Holy (ihnst make one (iod, the Scripture teaches nothing, since the sub- ject is of such a nature as not to admit of its being ex- jilained to us. It is therefore to be expected that theo- logians should differ widely in their opinions respecting it, and that in their attempts to illustrate it they shoukl have pursued various methods,
1. Ag Held bij the Priiidtive Christians. — For the first age the Scripture is sufficient evidence of the Chris- tians' practice. For, not to insist upon the ])recept of honoring the Son as they honored the Father; or the form of baptism, in which they were commanded to join the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in one act of worship; or the injunction to believe in the Son as they believed in the Father, let reference be made only to their example and practice. Stephen, the protomartyr, when he was sealing his confession with his blood, prayed to Christ, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts vii, 59, 60). Paul asserts that he baptized only in the name of Christ (1 Cor. i, 13). Notice also his constant use of the name of Christ in invocation. There is the well- known fact that the early believers were known as those who called on the name of Christ (Acts ix. 1-t, 21 ; 1 Cor. i, 2 ; 2 Tim. ii, 22).
2. A s Held in the 2d and Zd Centuries. — Towards the end of the 1st century, and during the 2d, many learned men came over both from Judaism and paganism to Christianity. These brought with them into the Chris- tian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and phra- seology, and they especially borrowed from the phi- losophical writings of Philo. As was very natural, they confined themselves, in their philosophizing re- specting the Trinity, principally to the Logos; connect- ing the same ideas with the name \6yoQ as had been done before by Philo and other Platonists. Differing on several smaller points, they agreed perfectly in the following general views, viz. : the Logos existed before the creation of the worM; he w^as begotten, however, by God, and sent forth from him. By this Logos the Neo-Platonists understood the infinite understanding of God, belonging from eternity to his nature as a power, but that, agreeably to the divine will, it began to exist out of the divine nature. It is therefore different from God, and yet, as begotten of him, is entirely divine. By means of this Logos they supposed that God at first created, and now preserves and governs, the universe. Their views respecting the Holy Spirit are far less clearly expressed, though most of them considered him a substance emanating from the Father and the Son, to whom, on this account, divinity must be ascribed. These philosophical Christians asserted rather the di- rineness of the Son and Spirit, and their divine origin, than their equal deify with the Father. Justin IMar- tyr expressly declares that the Son is in God what the untlerstanding (voiig) is in man, and that the Holy Spirit is that divine power to act and execute which Plato calls dperi). With this representation Theophi- lus of Antioch, Clemens of Alexandria, and Origen sub- stantially agree. According to TertuUian, the persons of the Trinity are f/radus, forma;, species unius Dei. Thus we find that the belief in the subordination of the Son to the Father, for which Arianism is the later name, was commonly received by most of those fathers of the 2d and 3d centuries who assented, in general, to the philosophy of Plato. Another class of learned, phi-