Unitarians consider the doctrine of the Trinity a gradual development, as Gentiles came into the Church and subjected the Gospel to the influence of Oriental speculations and Greek philosophy. The followers of Zoroaster and Plato, teaching the eternal antagonism of spirit and matter, tilled the time with speculations concerning God as a superior essence creating the world by inferior divinities. In the Platonic doctrine of tho Logos began the gradual deification of Jesus, consum- mated only by votes of successive councils of the 4th century. A succession of testimonies meanwhile show the continued existence of faith in the undivided unity of God. In the latter half of the 2d century, Justin Martyr says, " Some there are among ourselves who ad- mit that Jesus is Christ while holding him to be man of men." Still later, Tertullian says, " Common people think of Christ as a man." About the year 200 Tertul- lian was himself the first to introduce into Christian theology the word " Trinitas." The unity of God was expressly taught by a sect called the " Monarchians." Some held that God the Father himself was born and suffered in human form, and hence were called "Patri- passians." Of these were Beryllus, bishop of Bostria in Arabia; Praxeas, who came from Asia Minor to Rome; Noetus, of Smyrna ; and, still later, Sabellius, a presby- ter in the Church about A.D. 250, the most original and profound mind among the Monarchians. The teachings of Sabellius are variously represented bj' friend and foe, and are not now very accurate!}' to be known. He had followers as late as the 5th century in Mesopotamia and in Rome. Others held that Christ was in nature purely human, but exalted by his supe- rior measure of divine wisdom and -inspiration. Of these were Theodotus of Byzantium, Artemon of Rome, and Paul of Samosata. This noted teacher, bishop of Antioch from the year 260, makes prominent the human personality of Christ, teaching that " Christ was a man," "exalted to peculiar union with the divine nature by the illumination of divine wisdom." Deposed in 269, his name became a synonym for heresy; and in the next century the celebrated historian Eusebius confirms the testimony that he taught " that Christ was in nat- ure but a common man." Speculation and controversy thus went forward until, in the beginning of the 4th cen- tury, the relation of God and Clirist had become a ques- tion of substance or resemblance. In the famous theo- logical struggle over the terms homo- and homoi-ousian, whether God and Christ were of the same or only similar nature, Arius maintained that Jesus was a created being. He was opposed by the bishop Alexander, aided by Ath- anasius ; and the controversy waxed hot and opinion was divided, until Constantine, recently come to the throne as the first Christian emperor, summoned in A.D. 325 the
UNITARIANISM
642
UNITARIANISM
Council of Nice, in which the angry storm of the three hundred theologians was allayed and Arius and his doc- trine condemned. The historian Eusebias naively says, " The emperor succeeded in bringing them into simi- larity of judgment and conformity of opinion on all controverted points." For another century controversy continued as to the Holy .Si)irit, the double nature of Christ, and Mary as Mother of God, all of which were graduall}' settled by majority votes of successive coun- cils, culminating in the Creed long attributed to Atha- nasius, but now believed to have been written a hun- dred years after his death.
In surveying the opinions of the carl}' Church, it thus becomes clear that Unitarianism existed from the be- ginning; that the belief in the Trinity and the Deity of Christ was three or four centuries gradually forming; that during this period the range of opinions concern- ing Jesus was as widely varied as at the present time; that two or three hundred years after the death of Christ it was still doubtful, and settled oidy by the majority of a council, whose decision was secured through the influ- ence of a newly converted emperor, whether the Chris- tian Church should regard Jesus as a person in the God- head, or, as the apostle Peter declared him, a man ap- proved by signs and wonders which God did b\' him. The Unitarian deems the whole question a corruption of the pure Gospel by philosophic speculation, and seeks, as the essence of Christianity, the practical religion taught by Jesus Christ — of love to God and man.
It may be added as a fact of interest, and one signifi- cant of the aid rendered to Christianity by this branch of the Church, that one of the chief lights of Arianism, the Gothic Ulfllas, born near the Lower Danube at about the time of the Council of Nice, and consecrated bishop at the age of thirty, devoting himself to the religious and social development of his people, familiar with the Latin, Greek, and Gothic languages, rendered his name forever to be honored by his translation of the Bible into his native tongue, which at once helped to give lasting form to the Gothic language and to perpetuate Christianity among the Gothic people. For four cen- turies the Goths were accompanied in their migrations by this sacred national work, portions of which still re- main in the Universitj' Librarj' of Upsal, in Sweden. The sect of the Nestorians, also, who may fairly be counted on the Arian side, at about the 7th century, were the first to carry Christianity to the far East, into Persia and China.