§ 180. THE NICENE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 68?
to execute judgment also ; " * " All tilings are delivered unto me [iravTa fMoc TrapeSo^rj) of my Father ; " " " My Father is greater than I." ' But these and similar passages refer to the historical relation of the Father to the incarnate Logos in his estato of humiliation, or to the elevation of human nature to participation in the glorj'^ and power of the divine," not to the eternal metaphysical relation of the Father to the Son.
In this point, as in the docti'iiie of the Holy Ghost, the Nicene system yet needed further development. The logical consistency of the doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son, upon which the Kicene fathers laid chief stress, must in time overcome this decaying remnant of the ante-Nicene subordinationism.*
' John V. 26, 27.
"^ Matt. xi. 27 ; comp. xxviii. 18.
^ John xiv. 28. Cudworth (1. c. ii. 422) agrees with several of the Niceno fathers in referring this passage to the divinity of Christ, for the reason that the superiority of the eternal God over mortal man was no news at all. Mosheim, ia a learned note to Cudworth in loco, protests against both interpretations, and correctly so. For Christ speaks here of his entire divine-kuman person^ but in the state of liumiliation.
* John xvii. 6; Phil. ii. 9-11.
^ All important scholars since Petavius admit the subordiuationism in the Nicen^ doctrine of the trinity ; e. g.. Bull, who in the fourth (not third, as Gibbon says) section of his famous Defensio fidei Nic. (Works, vol. v. Pars ii. pp. 6t.j-796) treats quite at large of the subordination of the Son to the Father, and in behalf of the identity of the Nicene and ante-Niceue doctrine proves that all the orthodox fathers, l^fore and after the council of Nice, " uno ore docuerunt naturam perfectionesque diviuas Patri FiUoque competere non callateraliter aut coordinate, sed subordinate ; hoc est, Filium eandem quidem naturam divinam cum Patre communem habere, sed a Patre communicatam ; ita scilicet ut Pater solus naturam illam divinam a 86 habeat, sive a nullo alio, Filius autem a Patre ; proinde Pater divinitatis, quae in Filio est, origo ac princlpium sit," etc. So Waterland, who, ia his vindication of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity against Samuel Clarke, asserts such a supremacy of the Father as is consistent with the eternal and necessary existence, the consubstantiality, and the infinite perfection of the Son. Among modern historians Neander, Gieseler, Baur (Lehre von der Drei jinigkeit, etc. i. p. 468 ff.), and Dorner (Lehre vou der Person Christi, L p. 929 ff.) arrive at the same result. But while Baur and Dorner (though from different points of view) recognize in this a defect of the Nicena doctrine, to be overcome by the subsequent development of the church dogma, tha great Anglican divines, Cudworth (Intt'.lectual System, vol. ii. p. 421 ff.), Pearson, Bull, Waterland (and among American divines Dr. Shead) regard the Nicene sub* ordinationism as the true, Scriptura , and final form of the trinitarian doctrine, and
681 THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
§ 131. The PostrNicene Trinitarian Doctrine cjf A ugustine.
Augustine: De trinitate, libri xv., begun in 400, and finished about 415; and his aiiti-Arian works: Contra serraonem Arianorum; CoHatio cum Maxiraino Arianorum episcopo ; Contra Maximinum haareticum, libri ii. (all ill his Opera omnia, ed. Bened. of Venice, 1733, in torn. viii. pp. 626-1004; and in Migne's ed. Par. 1845, torn. viii. pp. 683-1098).
While the Greek cliurch stopped with the Nicene statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Latin church carried the development onward under the guidance of the profound and devout speculative spirit of Augustine in the beginning of tlie fifth century, to the formation of the Athanasian Creed. Of all the fathers, next to Athanasius, Augustine performed the greatest service for this dogma, and by his discriminating speculation he exerted more influence upon the scholastic theology and that of the Reformation, than all the Nicene divines. The points in which he advanced upon the Nicene Creed, are the following : '
1. He eliminated the remnant of subordinationism, and brought out more clearly and sharply the consubstantiality of the three persons and the numerical unity of their essence."
make no account of Augustine, wlio went beyond it. Kahnis (Der Kirchcnglaubc^ ii. p. 66 ff.) thinks that the Scriptures go still further than the Nicene fathers in subordinating the Son and the Sfjirit to the Father.
' The Augustinian doctrine of the trinity is discussed at length by Baur, Die christl. Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit. etc. vol. i. pp. 826-888. Augustine had but au imperfect knowledge of the Greek language, and waa therefore not accurately acquainted with the writings of the Nicene fatliera, but was thrown the more upon his own thinking. Coinp. his confession, De trinit. 1. iii. cap. 1 (torn. viii. f. 793, ed. Bened. Venet., from which in this section I always quote, though givirg the varying chapter-division of other editions).
' De trinit 1. vii. cap. 6 (§ll)i toin. viii. f. 863: "Non majcr essentia est Pater et FiUus et Spiritus Sanctus simul, quani solus Pater, aut solus Filius ; sed tros Bimul illae substantiae [here equivalent to i/iroo-ToireiT] sive persona;, si ita dicendie Bunt, aequales sunt singulis: quod animalis homo non percipit." Ibid. (f. 868): "Ita dicat unam essentiam, ut non existimet aliud alio vel majus, vel melius, vfl ■liqua ex parte divisim." Ibid. lib. viii. c. 1 (fol. 865): "Quod vero ad se dicuntur •inguli, non dici pluraliter tres, sed unam ipsam trinitatem : sicat Dcus Pater, Deiu Viline, Deus Spiritus Sanctus; et bonus Paler, bonus Filius, bonus Spiritus Sanctus: