RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Christology
ments, ' lecially if the worship and devotional life as Fell as the theological literature be considered. Christ was the object of » worship, prayer, and praise from the ' ^^^^"t^Con beginning, as must be inferred
sistently " passages of the New Testa-
Held ment as Jolm xx. 28; Acts vii. 59, 60, ix. 14, 21; I Cor. i. 2; Phil. ii. 10; Heb. i. 6; I John v. 13-15; Rev. v. 6-13; from the heathen testimony of Pliny the Younger conceming the singing of hymns to Christ as God (" Carmen Christo quasi Deo dicere," Epist., x. 97); from the " Gloria in Excelsis," which was th£ daily morning hymn of the Eastern Church as early as the second century; from the " Tersanctus "; from the Hymn of Clement of Alexandria ta the ' divine Logos {Poedagogus, iii. 12); from the statements of Origen (Contra Celsum, viii.. 67) and Eusebius (Hist, eccl, v. 28); and from many other testimonies. Christ was believed to be«-divine, and adored as divine, before he was clearly taught to be divine. The ante-Nicene rules of faith as they are found in the writings of Irenaeus, Origen, TertuUian, Cyprian, etc., are in essential agreement among themselves and with the Apostles' Creed, as it appears, first in the fourth century, especially at Rome and Aquileia. (Cf. Ruf]nus,Z)e symbolo.) They all confess the divine-hmnan character of Christ as the chief object of the Christian faith, but in the form of facts, and in simple, popular style, not in the form of doctrinal or logical statement. The Nicene Creed is much more explicit and dogmatic in consequence of the preceding contest with heresy; but the substance of the faith is the same in. the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. (For these Ante-Nicene Rules of Fai^h, cf. Schaff, Creeds, ii. 11-45.)
S. Theological Speculations: In the apostolic Fathers only simple practical. Biblical statements are found, with reminiscences of apostolic preaching for the purposes of edification.' Ignatius of Antioch calls Christ God without quahfication (Ad Ephes., vii. 18; cf. Ad Rom., vi.). Polycarp calls him "the eternal Son of God " (Ad Phil, ii. 8), and associates him in his last prayer with the Father and the Spirit (Martyrium Poly carpi, xiv.). The theological speculation on the person of Christ began with' Justin Martyr, and was carried on by Clement of Alexandria and Origen, in the East; by" Irenseus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, in the' West.
Justin Martyr (d. 166) takes up the Johannean Logos idea, which proved a very fruitful germ of theological speculation. It was prepared by the Old Testament personification the word and wisdom of God, assumed an idealistic shape in Philo of Alexandria, and reached .'a realistic completion in St. John, although it is not 1- Justin likely that John's had anything more Martyr, in common with Philo's idea than the name "Logos." Following the suggestion of the double meaning of the Greek logos (ratio and oratio), Justin distinguishes in the Logos two elements — the immanent and the transitive; the revelation of God ad intra, and the revelation od extra. He teaches the procession of the Logos
from tho free will (not the essence) of God by generation, without division or diminution of the divine substance. This begotten Logos he conceives as a hypostatical being, a person distinct from the Father, and subordinate to him. He coordinates God, the Son, and the prophetic Spirit, as objects of Christian worship (Apol., i. 6).' Peculiar is his doctrine of the logos spermatikos, the " seminal Logos," or the Word disseminated among men, i.e., Christ before the incarnation, who scattered elements of truth and virtue among the heathen philosophers and poets, although they did not know it.
Clement of Alexandria (d. 220) sees in the Logos the ultimate principle of all existence (without
beginning, and timeless), the revealer 2/ Clement of the Father, the sum of all intelli- / of Alex- gence and wisdom, the personal truth, andria. the author of the world, the source of
light and life, the educator of the race, who at last became man to make us partakers of his divine nature.. Like some other ante-Nicene Fathers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Origen), he conceived the outward appearance of Christ's humanity in the state of humiliation to have been literally without form or comeliness (ISa. liii. 2, 3); but he had made a distinction between two kinds of beauty — the outward beauty of the flesh, which soon fades away; and the moral beauty of the soul, which is permanent, and shone even through the servant form of our Lord (Posdagogus, iii. 1).
Origen (d. 254) felt the whole weight of the christological problem, butjjbscured it by foreign speculations, and prepared the way both for the Arian heresy and the Athanasian orthodoxy, though more fully for the latter. On the one hand he closely approaches the Nicene homoousion by bringing the Son into union with the essence of the Father, and ascribing to him the
attribute of eternity.. He is, properly, 3. Origen. the author of the Nicene doctrine of
eternal generation of the Son from the essence of the Father (though he usually represents the generation as an act of the will of thfe Father). But, on the other hand, he teaches subordinationism by calling the Son simply " God," and " a second God," but not "the God" (ho theos or autos theos). In ids views on the hiunanity of Christ, he approached the semi-Guostic Docetism, and ascribed to the glorified body of Christ ubiquity (in which he was followed by Gregory of Ny.ssa). His e^iemies charged him with teaching a double Christ (answering to the lower Jesus, and the higher Soter of the Gnostics), and a merely temporary validity of the body of the Redeemer. As to the relation of the two natures in Christ, he was the first to use the term " God-man " and to apply the favorite illustration of fire heating and penetrating the iron, without altering its character.
The Western Church was not so fruitful in speculation, but, upon the whole, sounder and "more self -consistent. The key-note was struck by Irenaeus (d. 202), who, though of Eastern origin, spent his active hfe in the south of France. He i carries special weight as a pupil of Polycarp of
Chiiatology