RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
HTolokani Monar chian i sin
IV
I. The Beginnings of Monarchianism. Christology of the Early Church
(§1). Discrepancies in Primitive Chris-
tologies (§2). Meaning of " Monarchian " (§ 3). Relations to the Catholics (§ 4). II. The " Alogi " of Asia Minor. III. Adoptionism in the West.
Theodotus and His Teachings (§1). Successors of Theodotus and Their
Exegesis (§ 2). Melchisedicians (§ 3). Theodotian Concept of Christ (§ 4).
I. The Beginnings of Monarchianism: Up to
the end of the second century the doctrine of the Logos had by no means been definitely fixed, despite the statements of the apologists, Irenseus, Tertullian, and Clement, and despite the general recognition that Christ must be thought of in the
same way as God. There was, there-
i. The fore, no strict formulation of the nature
Christology and dignity of the Redeemer or of the
of the Early being of God. Nor was a comparison
Church, of the two persons even contemplated,
for the recognition of the preexistence of the Son had influence on the concept of the Godhead so long as this preexistent Son was considered a creature, and so long as a plurality of heavenly spirits and personified powers was assumed. The points regarding the personality of the Redeemer generally established and defended between 140 and 180 were derived from the short creed based on Matt, xxviii. 19: the Son of God, the Lord and Savior, born of the Holy Ghost and the virgin. The recognition of the supernatural birth (itself assuming preexistence) marked the delimitation between the strict Juda^o-Christians and those who would merely admire Christ as a second Socrates; while the recognition of his physical birth and true human life formed a barrier against the Gnostics. Even at this early period there existed side by side Christologies which were to form the bases of the Monarchian, Arian, Athanasian, and even Docetic and Gnostic systems; and the same writer uses formulas in which the divinity of the Son is ascribed in one place to special election and endowment by the deity, in a second to the actual indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and in a third to a celestial hypostasis or an incarnation of the Godhead. There is nothing to show, however, that at that time Christ was regarded as the actual Godhead. He was rather deemed either as the man in whom the Godhead or the Spirit of God dwelt, or — this being doubtless the more general view — as the heavenly Spirit which had become incarnate and manifest. Those who maintained the latter view held that Christ became what he is before his miraculous birth; while those who adhered to the former hypothesis believed that the indwelling of the divine Spirit had taken place at his baptism, it being also possible to assurre a progressive filling of the Son of Man with the Holy Ghost.
To the two views here set forth may be referred the various Christologies of the second century; and, although the distinction between them might be
MONARCHIANISM.
Artemas; Decay of Western Dynamistic Monarchianism (§5).
Suppression of Adoptionism in the East.
Opponents of Logos-Ghristology in the East (§1).
Paul of Samosata (§ 2).
Paul's Homoousianism and Influence (§ 3). V. Modalistic Monarchianism in Asia Minor, Rome, and Carthage.
Wide Popularity of Modalistic Monarchianism (§ 1).
Rise of Patripassianism at Rome; Praxeas (§ 2).
Doctrines of the Early Modalists (§3).
Later Modalism and Catholic Compromise (§4).
Struggle between Hypostatism and Modalism (§ 5). VI. Modalistic Monarchians in the East; Sabellianism.
Sabellius; Obscurity of the Sources (§ 1).
Relations and Decay of Sabellianism (§ 2).
glossed over in public worship, the theological discrepancy was still felt, and even the laity came to take part in the ensuing controversy. 2. Discrep- The Bible was cited in support of both ancies in views, although the conditions of the Primitive time favored belief in the incarnation Christol- of a special divine being in Christ. ogies. This was confirmed by the interpretation of the theophanies of the Old Testament as explained by the Alexandrine school, by the testimony of St. Paul and a series of ancient writings, and by the cosmological and theological principles borrowed from the religious philosophy of the period to serve as the basis of a rational Christian philosophy. Assuming the theory of the divine Logos to explain the origin and history of the world, the establishment of the divine dignity and the divine sonship of the Redeemer was already fixed. Nor did this involve any peril to monotheism even when the Logos was allowed to be more than a procession from the creative will of God, since the infinite substance of the Godhead might be developed in various subjects and be communicated to various persons without being emptied or divided in essence. Neither was the divinity of Christ imperiled by the doctrine that he was the incarnation of the Logos, for the Logos-concept was capable of the most varied interpretation and lent itself to each new development of speculation and exegesis. It accordingly developed finally into the very antithesis of its original concept, but until this happened, and so long as the Logos connoted either the archetype of the world or the rational law of the universe, it was somewhat mistrusted as a means for establishing the divinity of Christ, for the pious would see in Christ nothing less than the Godhead itself. Athanasius was the first to render this possible by his interpretation of the Logos, though he practically put the Logos-doctrine into the background; so that from him to Augustine the history of Christology became the history of the replacement of the concept of the Logos by that of the sonship of Christ. The first formal protest against the Logos-Christology in the second century was prompted by a desire to preserve strict monotheism— primarily by the interest in the humanity of the Redeemer— combined with a repugnance to the employment of Platonic and Stoic philosophy in Christian doctrine. The primary concern of the Monarchians, who were at first charged with lowering (if not destroying) the dignity of the Redeemer — a charge they later turned against their oppo-
Monarohianism