What strikes one throughout the scheme is the intense difficulty caused to Marcellus by the unsolved problem which underlies the whole theology of the Nicene leaders, the problem of personality. The Manhood of Christ was to Marcellus per se non-personal. The seat of its personality was the indwelling Logos. But in what sense was the Logos itself personal? Here Marcellus loses his footing: in what sense can any idea of personality attach to a merely potential existence? Again, if it was only in the energeia drastike that the personality of the Word was realised, and this only reached its fulness in the Incarnation of Christ, was the transition difficult to the plain assertion that the personality of the Son, or of the Word, originated with the Incarnation? But if this were not so, and if the Person of the Word was to recede at the consummation of all things into the Unity of the Godhead, what was to become of the Nature He had assumed? That it too could merge into a potential existence within the Godhead was of course impossible; what then was its destiny? The answer of Marcellus was simple: he did not know (Zahn, 179); for Scripture taught nothing beyond 1 Cor. xv. 28.
We now perceive the subtle difference between Marcellus and Athanasius. Neither of them could formulate the idea of Personality in the Holy Trinity. But Athanasius, apparently on the basis of a more thorough intelligence of Scripture (for Marcellus, though a devout, was a partial and somewhat ignorant biblical theologian), felt what Marcellus did not, the steady inherent personal distinctness of the Father and the Son. Accordingly, while Athanasius laid down and adhered to the doctrine of eternal gennesis, Marcellus involved himself in the mystical and confused idea of a divine platusmos and sustole. Moreover, while Athanasius was clearsighted in his apprehension of the problem of the day, Marcellus was after all merely conservative: he went behind the conservatism of the Origenists,--behind even that of the West, where Tertullian had left a sharper sense of personal distinction in the Godhead,--to an archaic conservatism akin to the naive modalism' of the early Church; upon this he engrafted reflexion, in part that of the old Asiatic theology, in part his own. As the result, his faith was such as Athanasius could not but recognise as sincere; but in his attempt to give it theological expression he split upon the rocks of Personality, of Eschatology, of the divine immutability. His theology was an honest and interesting but mistaken attempt to grapple with a problem before he understood another which lay at its base. In doing so he exposed himself justly to attack; but we may with Athanasius, while acknowledging this, retain a kindly sympathy for this veteran ally of many confessors and sturdy opponent of the alliance between science and theology.
The feeling against Marcellus might have been less strong, at any rate it would have had less show of reason, but for the fact that he was the teacher of Photinus. This person became bishop of Sirmium between 330 and 340, gave great offence by his teaching, and was deposed by the Arian party ineffectually in 347, finally in 351. After his expulsion he occupied himself with writing books in Greek and in Latin, including a work against all heresies,' in which he expounded his own (Socr. ii. 30). None of his works have survived, and our information is very scanty (Zahn, Marc. 189-196 is the best account), but he seems to have solved the central difficulty of Marcellus by placing the seat of the Personality of Christ in His Human Soul. How much of the system of his master he retained is uncertain, but the result was in substance pure Unitarianism. It is instructive to observe that even Photinus was passively supported for a time by the Nicenes. He was apparently (Hil. Fr. ii. 19, sqq.) condemned at a council at Milan in 345, but not at Rome till 380. Athanasius (pp. 444-447) abstains from mentioning his name although he refutes his opinions; once only he mentions him as a heretic, and with apparent reluctance (c. Apoll. ii. 19, tou legomenou photeinou). The first [41] condemnation of him on the Nicene side in the East is by Paulinus of Antioch in 362 (p. 486). On the other hand the Eusebians eagerly caught at so irresistible a weapon. Again and again they hurled anathemas at Photinus, at first simply identifying him with Marcellus, but afterwards with full appreciation of his position. And even to the last the new Nicene party in Asia were aggrieved at the refusal of the old Nicenes at Alexandria and Rome to anathematise the master of such a heretic. Photinus was the scandal of Marcellus, Marcellus of the Council of Nicæa.
[14] . p. 123) is very delicate: both ideas are covered by Dasein'. The two forms of Monarchianism are related exactly as the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity is to the Nestorian.
[15] . p. 608), and Cleomenes. Praxeas arrived in Rome under Victor (or earlier, Harnack, p. 610), and combined strong opposition to Montanism, with equally strong modalism in his theology. In both respects his influence told upon the heads of the Church. Montanism was expelled, Modalism tolerated, Theodotus excommunicated; Duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romæ procuravit: prophetiam expulit et hæresin intulit: Paracletum fugavit et Patrem crucifixit'. (Tert.) Praxeas hæresin introduxit quam Victor[inus] (perhaps a confusion with Zephyrinus) corroborare curavit' (Tertullian' adv. Hær.)
[16] This point is still in debate. Against it, see Lightfoot, S. Clement of Rome (ed. 1890), for it, Döllinger Hipp. and Call., and Neumann, Der Röm. Staat u. d. Allg. Kirche (Leipz. 1890).
[17] But only at Aquileia was the rule of faith adapted by the insertion of impassibilis.
[18] See Newman's note Ar. p. 186, where the additions in brackets seriously modify his statement in the text. Also cf. infr. ch. iv. §3, and Bigg, p. 179, note 2.
[19] Cels. iii. 34, cf. Alexander's mesiteuousa phusis monogenes. But observe that the passage insisted on by Shedd, 294, heteros kat' ousian kai hupokeimenon ho hui& 232;s tou patros, does not bear the sense he extracts from it. ousia here is not essence' but hypostasis'.
[20] The formula ktisma ho hui& 231;s is ascribed to Origen by the anti-Chalcedonists of the sixth century, but is probably a consequenz-macherei' from the above; see Caspari Alte u. N. Quellen, p. 60, note. But ktisma was sometimes applied to the Son in a vague sense, on the ground of Prov. viii. 22, a text not used in this way by Origen.
[21] Compare the strong Origenist rejection of Chiliasm, the spiritualism of Origen as contrasted with the realism of Asia Minor, the Asiatic origin of Roman Monarchianism, of Montanism.
[22] The position of Eusebius of Cæsarea is at the extreme left' of the Origenist body. (A reflex of the unsolved problems of the Church of that time,' Dorner.) It is as though Dionysius instead of withdrawing and modifying his incriminated statements, had involved them in a haze of explanations and biblical phrases which left them where they were. But this is not so much Arianism as confusion. All is hollow and empty, precarious and ambiguous. With a vast apparatus of biblical expressions and the use of every possible formula, Monotheism is indeed maintained, but practically a created subordinate God is inserted between God and mankind' (Harnack, p. 648). See also Dorner, Lehre der Pers. Chr. Pt. 1, pp. 793-798. The language quoted by Ath. below, p. 459, was doubtless meant by Eusebius in an Origenist sense.
[23] The theological genesis of Paul's system is obscure. The theory of Newman that he was under strong Jewish influences is largely based upon the late and apparently quite erroneous tradition that his patroness Zenobia was a Jewess; see p. 296, note 9^a, and Gwatkin, p. 57, and note 3. Harnack regards him as the representative of archaic' East-Syrian adoptionism such as pervades the Discussion of Archelaus with Manes;' see Routh, Rell. v. especially pp. 178-184. But Paul would not have spoken of Mary as Dei Genetrix,' p. 128; I cannot see more in these Acta' than a naive adoptionism homologous to the naive modalism' of much early Christian language, but like it not representative of the entire view of those who use it; we must also note that the statements of Archelaus' are coloured by reaction against the docetism of Manes;' but Paul may well have taken up this naive adoptionism, and, by strict Aristotelian logic, developed it as the exclusive basis of his system. Whether Paul's use of the idea of the Logos betrays the faintest influence of Origen is to me, at least, extremely uncertain.
[24] aposunagogos emeinen, Alex. Alexand. in Thdt.; the objections of Gwatkin, p. 18, note, are generously meant rather than convincing: the creed of Lucian' is not usable without discrimination for Lucian's position: see discussion by Caspari A.u.N.Q. p. 42, note.
[25] . 598, ii. 183 sqq. must, I think, convince any open mind of the fact. Consult his article on Lucian in Herzog^2. viii. 767 (the best investigation), also Neander H. E. ii. 198, iv. 108; Möller K.G. i. 226, D.C.B. iii. 748; Kölling, vol. 1, pp. 27-31, who makes the mistake of taking the Lucianic creed' as his point of departure.
[26] This is ascribed to Lucian by Epiph. Ancor. 33, and there is no reason whatever to doubt it. The tenet was part of the Arian system from the first, and was attacked already by Eustathius, Fragm. apud Thdt. Dial. iii., but often overlooked, e.g. even by Athanasius in his writings before 362, but see p. 352, note 5. It came to the front in the system of Eunomius, and was much discussed in the last decade of the life of S. Athan. The system of Apollinaris was different. (See pp. 570, note 1, 575, note 1.)
[27] aparallakton eikona, which an Arian would be prepared to admit as the result of the prokope. (See below, §6, on the Creeds of 341). I cannot regard Asterius as a semi-Arian;' the only grounds for it are the above phrase and the statement (Lib. Syn.) that he attended the Council of 341 with the Conservative Dianius. But Asterius was as ready to compromise with conservatism as he had formerly been with heathenism, and his anxiety for a bishopric would carry him to even greater lengths in order to attend a council under influential patronage.
[28] The letter of Alexander to his namesake of Byzantium in Thdt. i. 4, cannot be exempted from this generalisation.
[29] They appear to have comprised the Arian appeal to Scripture of which (considering the Biblical learning of Lucian and what we hear of the training of Aetius, to say nothing of the exegetical chair held by Arius at Alxa.) their use must be pronounced meagre and superficial. In the O.T. they harped upon three texts, Deut. vi. 4 (Monotheism), Ps. xlv. 8 (Adoptionism), and Prov. viii. 22, LXX. (the Word a Creature). In the N.T. they appeal for Monotheism (in their sense) to Luke xviii. 19, John xvii. 3; The Son a Creature, Acts ii. 36, 1 Cor. i. 24, Col. i. 15, Heb. iii. 2; Adoptionism, Matt. xii. 28; prokope, Luke ii. 52; also Matt. xxvi. 41, Phil. ii. 6, sq., Heb. i. 4; The Son treptos, &c., Mark xiii. 32, John xiii. 31, xi. 34; inferior to the Father, John xiv. 48, Matt. xxvii. 46, also xi. 27 a, xxvi. 39, xxviii. 18, John xii. 27, and 1 Cor. xv. 28 (cf. pp. 407, sq.). In this respect Origen is immeasurably superior.
[30] They are regarded by Athan., a generation after they were written, as the representative statement of the case' for Arianism (pp. 459 sq.; 324 sqq., 361, 363, 368, &c., from which passages and Eus. c. Marcell. a fragmentary restoration might be attempted). For what is known of his history (not in D.C.B.) see Gwatkin, p. 72, note; for his doctrinal position see above, p. xxviii.
[31] A theology which aims at consistency must borrow a method, a philosophy, from outside the sphere of religion. The most developed system of Catholic theology, that of S. Thomas Aquinas, borrows its method from the same source as did Arius,--Aristotle.
[32] This illustrates the famous paradox of Cardinal Newman (Development, ed. 1878, pp. 142-4), that the condemnation of Arian Christology left vacant a throne in heaven which the medieval Church legitimately filled with the Blessed Virgin; that the Nicene condemnation of the Arian theology is the vindication of the medieval; that the votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son come up to it.' But the question here was one of worship, not of theology. The Arians worshipped Christ, whom they regarded as a created being: therefore, the Nicene fathers urge with one consent, they were idolaters. The idea of a created being capable of being worshipped was an Arian legacy to the Church, no doubt. But this very idea, to Athanasius and Hilary, marked them out as idolaters. It was reserved for later times to find a subject for an Arian predicate' (Mozley). The argument is an astonishing admission.