THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
epithet. It is highly probable that adoptionist Christology widely prevailed in Armenia until the triumph of Greek influence and continued to be zealously maintained by a persecuted minority until its adherents crystallized into the Paulicianism the chief peculiarities of which were the uncompromising rejection of infant baptism and the maintenance of adoptionist Christology. " The Key of Truth " (edited and translated by F. C. Conybeare, Oxford, 1896), probably written in the ninth century, but representing the doctrines and practises of a much earlier time, is outspoken in its adoptionism. In the section on the baptism of Christ it is said: " So then it was in the season of his maturity that he received baptism; then it was that he received authority, received the high-priesthood, received the kingdom and the office of chief shepherd. Moreover he was then chosen, then he won lordship, then he became resplendent, then he was strengthened, then he was revered, then he was appointed to guard us, then he was glorified, then he was praised, then be was made glad, then he shone forth, then he was pleased, and then he rejoiced. It was then he became chief of beings heavenly and earthly, then he became light of the world, then he became the way, the truth, and the life. Then he became the door of heaven, then he became the rock impregnable at the gate of hell; then he became the foundation of our faith; then he became savior of us sinners; then he was filled with the Godhead. Furthermore, he then put on the pri-
mal raiment of light which Adam lost in the garden. Then accordingly it was that he was invited by the Spirit of God to converse with the heavenly Father," etc. a. h. n.]
V. Modalistic Monarchianism in Asia Minor, Rome, and Carthage: The real peril to the Logos- Christology between 180 and 240 was not the dynamistic Monarchianism thus far disi. Wide cussed, but the view which regarded Popularity Christ as God in person, and as the of Modal- Father incarnate. Called Monarchiistic Mon- ans and Patripassians in the West, archianism. and Sabellians in the East, they were combated by Tertullian, Origen, Ncvatian, and, above all, Hippolytus. According to the latter, the Monarchian controversy disturbed the entire Church; while Tertullian and Origen declare that in their day the " economic " Trinity and the application of the concept of the Logos to Christ were regarded with suspicion by the majority of Christians. The popularity of modalism, especially in the East, is reflected in the multitude of apocryphal acts of the apostles (see Apocrypha, B, II.), which almost invariably represent or approximate modalistic Christology. Here, too, falls the Christology of Irenseus, with its strange attempt to blend the Logos-Christology with modalism. In Rome Monarchianism had been the official teaching for nearly a generation; and that it was no new thing in the Church is clear from the presence of a Monarchian faction among the Montanists and Marcionites. The predominance of Monarchianism in the Church was due primarily to the struggle with Gnosticism; and though its adherents were mostly not professed theologians, adherents of
scientific training were not lacking. The modalists claimed by their doctrines to obviate ditheism, to assert the complete divinity of Christ, and to cut the ground from under Gnosticism. But the weakness of its cardinal hypothesis was too evident, and it was lost as soon as it saw itself obliged to assume either the defensive or offensive. Its contest with orthodoxy was strikingly reminiscent of the controversy between the genuine and the Platonizing Stoics on the concept of God. As the latter subordinated Plato's transcendental, dispassionate God to the Logos (God) of Heraclitus and the Stoics, so Origen reproached the Monarchians with remaining content with the visible God operating in the world, instead of proceeding to the " ultimate " God. It is not surprising, therefore, that when once modalistic Monarchianism had invoked the aid of science (i.e., of Stoicism), it was on the road to a pantheistic concept of God. Nevertheless, the earliest literary representatives of Monarchianism had a distinctly monotheistic interest which centered in Biblical Christianity.
As dynamistic Monarchianism first gained vogue in Asia Minor, the Church of this same region seems to have been the scene of the earliest Patripassian controversy; and in both instances 2. Rise Asia Minor may be regarded as having of Patri- transplanted the strife to Rome. Noepassianism tus, who seems to have been excomat Rome, municated about 230, doubtless first attracted attention as a Monarchian, probably in the last fifth of the second century, either at his native city Smyrna, or at Ephesus. His excommunication in Asia Minor seems to have taken place after the entire controversy had been settled at Rome. Epigonus (d. 200), a pupil of Noetus, came to Rome during the pontificate of Zephyrinus, and is said there to have promulgated the teachings of his master and to have founded a separate Patripassian party. The first head of the faction was Cleomenes, the pupil of Epigonus, and in 215 he was succeeded by Sabellius. Although they were opposed at Rome especially by Hippolytus, the sympathy of the majority of the Roman Christians was Monarchian. Even Zephyrinus, like his predecessor Victor, was inclined toward modalism, though his chief endeavor seems to have been to avoid schism at any cost. His policy was followed by his successor Calixtus (217-222); but when the struggle only became intensified, he resolved to excommunicate both Sabellius and Hippolytus, though it is not impossible that Hippolytus and his minority had already broken with Calixtus. The moderates of both parties seem to have been satisfied with the Christological formula proposed by Calixtus, and formed the bridge by which the Roman Christians passed from Monarchian to hypostatic Christology. The small faction of Hippolytus maintained an existence in Rome for some fifteen years; the Sabellians survived still longer. The scantiness of the sources for the history of Monarchianism in Rome — to say nothing of other cities — despite the discovery of the Philoso'phumena, is exemplified in the fact that Tertullian never mentions Noetus, Epigonus, Cleomenes, or Calixtus, but mentions a Monarchian in Rome