The History of the Trinity Doctrine by Frederick A. Farley 1860
There is no pretence, that before Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, any clear evidence has come down to us of belief in the early Church of even the derived deity of Christ. He was the first, so far as we can discover, distinctly to advance a dogma which proved to be the first fatal step in departure from the simple, primitive faith. That faith held Christ to be divine, only as having pre-existed, or as having been miraculously born, coming on a divine mission, holding a lofty official rank by the special appointment of God. But even Justin held and taught this dogma of Christ's deity, in a manner utterly at variance with the modern idea of the co-equality of the three persons of the Godhead. He speaks of Christ as "next in rank" to God; he says, "Him we reverence next after God"; he declares, that "the Father is the author to him both of his existence and of his being powerful, and of his being Lord and God." Emphatically—" I say, that he never did anything but what that God who made all things, and above whom there is no God, willed that he should do and say." [Apol. i. p. 63, Dial. c. Trypho. pp. 252, 282.] Irenaeus, A.d. 178, says: "All the Evangelists have delivered to us the doctrine of One God, and One Christ, the Son of God." And again: "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... of Him it is that Paul declared: 'There is One God, even the Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.'" [Lib. ii. cap. 3; iii. cap. 1.] Clement of Alexandria, at the close of the second century, calls the Father alone, "without beginning"; and in immediate connection describes the Son, as "the beginning and first-fruits of things, from whom we must learn the Father of all, the most ancient and beneficent of beings." [Opp p. 700.] In the beginning of the third century, we find Tertullian saying: "If the Father and the Son are to be named together, I call the Father God, and Jesus Christ, Lord; though I can call Christ God, when speaking of himself alone." "The Son is derived from the Father," he adds, "as the branch from the root, the stream from the fountain, the ray from the sun." [Adv. Prax. c. 8; c. 13.] Origen, A.d. 230, says: "He who is God of himself, is The God; as the Saviour states in his prayer to the Father, 'that they may know thee, the Only True God'; but whosoever becomes divine, by partaking of His divinity, cannot be styled, The God, but a God; among whom, especially, is the first-born of all creatures" And again: "Prayer is not to be directed to one begotten, not even to Christ himself; but to the God and Father of the universe alone, to whom also our Saviour prayed, and to whom he teaches us to pray." [Comm. ii. p. 47. Opp. tom. i. 222.] Novatus, A.D. 251, says: "The Son, to whom the divinity is communicated, is, indeed, God; but God, the Father of all, is deservedly God of all, and the originating cause of his Son, whom he begat Lord." [Cap. 23.] Arnobius, A.D. 300, calls "Christ a God, under the form of a man, speaking by order of the Supreme God;" and says, that "at length, did God Almighty, the Only God, send Christ." [Ad Gen. lib. ii. pp. 50, 57.] Lactantius, A.D. 310, says: "Christ taught that there is One God, alone to be worshipped. Never did he call himself God, because he would not have been true to his trust, if, being sent to take away a multiplicity of gods, and to declare One, he had introduced another besides. And because he assumed nothing to himself, that he might obey the commands of him who sent him, he received the dignity of Perpetual Priest, the honor of Sovereign King, the power of a Judge, the title of God." [Inst. lib. iv. c. 13.]
We have reached the time of the Council of Nice; and the series of testimonies, which I have cited merely as specimens of the manner in which the anti-Nicene and Nicene Fathers expressed themselves, is enough to show that they held views impossible to be reconciled with the received Trinitarian creeds of our day. They uniformly subordinate the Son to the Father, however they may style the former God. They make him a derived and dependent being. They trace all his gifts and powers to the Father. Even the famous Athanasius himself, who at the time of the Council was a young man, and who, about forty years afterwards, led the way for establishing the equality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son—"the true doctrine," as Gregory Nazianzen calls it, in his Eulogy on Athanasius, "of the One Godhead and nature of the Three Persons"—even he, according to Bishop Bull, "concedes that the Father is justly called the only God, because He only is without origin, and is alone the fountain of divinity." [Def. Fid. Nic. iv. c. i. §6.] Very learned Trinitarians acknowledge the position for which I am contending, in regard to the theology of the fifst three centuries. Bishop Bull, whose Defence of the Nicene Creed is regarded as the great reservoir of proofs for the Trinity from Ecclesiastical History, declares, that "No one can doubt, that the Fathers who lived before the Nicene Council, acknowledged this subordination," that is, of the Son, or the Son and Spirit, to the Father; and he proceeds "to show, that the fathers who wrote after this Council, taught the same doctrine." [Def. Fid. Nic. iv, c. i. § 3.] Mr. Hill criticised this statement, but Bishop Burnet said: "It does not become Mr. Hill to find fault with the Bishop, for having asserted that the Fathers, before the Council of Nice, did conceive in the Trinity a Subordination, importing an Inequality of the two last Persons with the first. The Bishop has but too many proofs upon this Article; and none but those who never read the Ancients, or read them without attention, disown it." [Animadv. on Hill, p. 30.] Munscher, in his "Elements of Dogmatic History," says, that "respecting the consummate perfection and majesty of the Father, there was no disagreement among" the early Fathers. [Murdoch's Translation.] Cudworth declares, that "the generality of Christian Doctors, for the first three hundred years after the Apostles' times, plainly asserted the same subordination." [Intell. Sys. vol. ii. p. 417.] M. Jurieu, the French Reformer, alleges, with proof-citations, that the same view was unanimously professed by the fathers of the first three centuries. [Past. Let. p. 126. See also Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, vol. i p. 129.]
In the light of these testimonies, what was the faith of the Nicene Council, three hundred and twenty-five years after Christ? It was virtualty that, which had been held from the time of Justin Martyr by all the ante-Nicene Fathers. It taught, indeed, that the Son was consubstantial, or, as the Creed reads in the Book of Common Prayer, "of one substance with the Father." This expression, however, did not mean, of the same numerical, identical substance, but, as Jortin expresses it, "of the same generical substance," a sameness of kind. The Son being of one substance with the Father, was thus declared to be of the same divine nature; and so far there was a natural equality between them. "But," says the Trinitarian Jortin, "according to them, (the Nicene fathers,) this natural equality excluded not a relative inequality; a majority and minority', founded upon the everlasting difference between giving and receiving, causing and being caused. . . . When they said, that the Father was God, they meant that he was God of himself, originally and underived. When they said, that the Son was God, they meant, that he was God by generation or derivation." [Jortin's Rem. on Eccles. Hist. ii. p. 202.] "What is of the same nature" said the great advocate of that early form of Trinitarianism, Athanasius, "is consubstantial"; and he illustrated it by saying, that "one man is of the same nature with another, as regards substance." Farther than this, that Council did not go. Before it sat, the highest views held by any of Christ, held him to be inferior, subordinate to God, the Father. Hence no co-equal Trinity, no Tri-Personality in the One God, no Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity; no Supreme Deity of Christ, as we nowadays hear. And in this very Council, the Supremacy of the Father, and thus the essence of the Unitarian faith, was after all sustained, as we shall the better see when we come to examine the terms of the Creed itself.
But this term, "consubstantial," by and by came to signify, not simply sameness of nature, but individual identity. Accordingly, after the middle of the fourth century, instead of the Supremacy of the Father, and the real, unqualified Subordination and Inferiority of the Son,—by virtue of which statement they were of necessity two distinct beings, -their actual numerical identity was taught. How true it is, as I have before had occasion to remark, and as will appear still clearer as I proceed, that systematic theology is but the piling up of doctrines, nay, of mere human opinions, one upon another, until the simple teachings of the Scripture, the Christianity of Christ, is well nigh covered from sight by the accretions of human speculation!
Let us now examine the early Creeds. And first, though the Scriptures set forth no formal creed of the nature of those symbols of Faith which subsequently obtained in various branches of the Church, and which have continued to be manufactured in modern times, they do in various passages enunciate very distinctly and emphatically what in this connection must be deemed and taken to be, fundamental articles of our holy religion. Ascending, then, to the highest, because, as we believe, divinely prompted, and authoritative statements on matters of faith, those of the Master and Lord of Christians, what do we find? A scribe asked him: "'Which is the first commandment of all?' And Jesus answered him: 'The first of all the commandments is, The Lord our God is One Lord This is the first commandment..... There is none other commandment greater.'" When the Scribe rejoined, and "said unto him, 'Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is One God; and there is none other but He'"—the record proceeds to tell us that "Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, and said unto him, 'Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.'" [Mark 12:29-32.] In that remarkable prayer which our Lord addressed to the Father just before he went forth to his betrayal, how explicit his language—"This Is Life Eternal, That They Might Know Thee, The Only True God, And Jesus The Christ, Whom Thou Hast Sent!" [John 17:3] So explicit — so luminous — so free from, nay, so absolutely precluding a thought of any, the least ambiguity in itself, or doubt as to its significance on the part of the reader, that to attempt to expound it, would seem as absurd as "to gild refined gold."
From the Master, turn to the disciple. When Jesus asked, "'Whom say ye that I am?' Simon Peter answered and said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'" How emphatic the approval which our Lord pronounced: "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonas! For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." [Matt. 16:15-17] The same disciple, on another occasion, addressed to his Master these words: "Thou hast the words of Eternal Life: and we believe and are sure, that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the Living God." [John 6:68, 69] Again; his Master had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven; and-—said Peter to the wondering witnesses, in his speech at Pentecost: "Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." He then adds to this language—of itself plain and significant enough to the most ordinary mind, one would think, as indicating Christ's dependence and the Spirit's also—this closing proclamation: "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ!" [Acts 2:33-36] And yet once more—at Cesarea, the same Apostle declared, before a Gentile audience, that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power for God was with him." [Acts 10:38]
Not a whit less distinct was the creed of Paul. To the Corinthian Church he writes: "Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many,) to us there is but One God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him; and One Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him." [Ep. 8:5,6] Again, to the Ephesians: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism; One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." [Ep. 4:5,6] I cannot forbear citing again, in this connection, that memorable passage in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which it would almost seem that Paul meant to guard his readers against imagining that Christ's kingly office was of independent and eternal or perpetual authority. "Then cometh the end when he (Christ) shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he (Christ) must reign, till He (God) hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For 'He (God) hath put all things under his feet.' But when it is said 'all things are put under him,' it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." [1 Cor. 15:24-28]
Finally, when the Chamberlain of the Ethiopian Queen was converted by Philip, he asked: "What doth hinder me to be baptized?" And the reply of Philip was: "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." And the Creed, the confession of faith which he made and Philip accepted, was: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God!" That was all. No Trinity, no Godhead of Christ, or of the Holy Ghost. Nor is either of these things to be found, or in the remotest way hinted at or shadowed forth, in any of the words of our Lord or his disciples which I have cited. Nay, no words, his or theirs, can be cited from Holy Writ, contradictory to, or at variance with them. His divine Sonship, Messiahship, Kingship, Lordship, are expressly claimed, recognized, declared; but never his Godhead or Deity, in these Scriptural Creeds or Statements of Faith.
True, as the word is commonly used—a use, by the way, which has excited a very unhappy prejudice, I often think, against the thing—there are in the New Testament no Creeds. Our Lord and his Apostles prescribed no set Articles of Faith, no carefully-drawn Symbol, to be through all time subscribed and transmitted as of binding authority upon his Universal Church. We find here and there a "Credo" an "I believe" in which an individual expresses his faith in "the Christ, the Son of God," and a "Blessed art thou" follows it. But nothing beyond, except that it is placed on the holy record and sent down the stream of time, for the example, instruction, guidance of after ages. When, however, we leave the Scriptures, and open the History of the Church after the age of inspiration and miracle had passed, we at once meet with Creeds, Symbols, Declarations of Faith; mostly drawn up and voted in by General Councils, as they were called, summoned together by the edict of an Emperor; who, though styled Christian, knew as much, and often cared as much about the merits of the discussion, as the most stupid slaves at his feet. These Councils were to settle the points in dispute, and establish the faith of the Church.*
[*How far deference should be paid to the decisions of such Councils my readers may be aided in judging by the following extract from Dr. Jortin, one of the lights of the English Establishment, of course a Trinitarian, but a most candid and able writer.
"Consider a little by what various motives these various men may be influenced; as, by reverence to the Emperor, or to his Councillors and favorites, his slaves and eunuchs; by fear of offending some great Prelate, as a Bishop of Rome or of Alexandria, who had it in his power to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within and without his jurisdiction; by the dread of passing for heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, hated, anathematised, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, fined, beggared, starved, if they refused to submit; by compliance with some active, leading, and imperious spirits, by a deference to a majority, by a love of dictating and domineering, of applause and respect, by vanity and ambition, by a total ignorance of the question in debate, or a total indifference about it, by private friendships, by enmity and resentment, by old prejudices, by hopes of gain, by an indolent disposition, by good nature, by the fatigue of attending, and a desire to be at home, by the love of peace and quiet, and a hatred of contention, etc.
"Whosoever takes these things into due consideration, will not be disposed to pay a blind deference to the authority of General Councils, and will rather be inclined to judge that 'the Council held by the Apostles was the first and the last in which the Holy Spirit may be affirmed to have presided.' .... If such Councils make righteous decrees, it must have been by strange good luck."—Notes on Eccles. History, vol. ii. 183-4.]
Before, however, the age of these Councils, we find in Irenaeus of Lyons, who flourished near the close of the second century, and in Tertullian of Carthage a few years later, statements of the ancient faith largely resembling those of what is commonly called the Apostles' Creed. That Creed in form, is not found earlier than in Rufinus of Aquileia at the close of the fourth century, who transmitted a tradition which had reached him, that it was actually composed by the Apostles before they separated to their missionary work. The tradition kept its hold on the Latin Church till the Reformation, when its Apostolic origin began to be questioned by Erasmus and others, and now in the words of Sir Peter King, "All learned persons are agreed, that it was never composed by the Apostles." [Const, of the Prim. Church, Pt. ii. p. 57.] It is as Bunsen expresses it, "an epitome of the leading facts related in the Gospel as to the Father, Son, and Spirit." He adds: "It has no value but its faithfulness, and, no authority but that of its origin. Still the point round which these epitomised elements have crystallised is that, which constitutes the whole doctrinal consciousness of the ancient Church: the belief in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
This, in the mind of the Primitive Church, was the only real doctrinal point respecting which the historical records of Christianity are in the highest sense authoritative. Again he says: "The most remarkable and important character of the Apostles' Creed is consequently this, that it purports to be nothing but an epitome of the New Testament based upon the belief in that divine threefoldness." [Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 93.] Mark that word of this most learned scholar, and competent critic, the Chevalier Bunsen—"threefoldness"—nay, "divine threefoldness"; and he a Trinitarian. If this "divine threefoldness" be all that is required to be believed in order to be orthodox, Unitarians should be esteemed such. Nay, here is just the point. We never have disputed this "divine threefoldness." What we have disputed and denied, and what we do still dispute and deny, is the Trinity as held in modern times and in our own day, in the forms of Tri-unity, Tri-personality, a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, in the Godhead. We deny that according to the teachings of Christ and his Apostles, God exists in Three co-equal, co-eternal Persons. We affirm that He exists in One Person, revealed by our Lord as the Father. All the while we assent to and believe, with the Supreme Deity of the Father, the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We take up, then, the so-called "Apostles' Creed," admitting it to be the most ancient formal creed extant—and what does it say?
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord; who was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost; was crucified under Pontius Pilate; buried; arose from the dead on the third day; ascended to the heavens, and sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, and the resurrection of the body."
This is the form given by Dr. Murdoch in a note to his edition of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History,* as "the common form of it in the fourth century"; and where will you find in it a word, a hint, of any thing contrary to Christian Unitarianism? You cannot. ["Vol. i. p. 80. It is remarkable that in the notices of it in Irenaeus, and Tertullian a little later, the first clause invariably reads ** One God."—Sir Peter King says, that "in all the most primitive Creeds (he means forms of this creed) whether Latin or Greek, this article runs "I believe in One God" or "in the Only God." (Hist. Apostles' Creed, p. 50.) So Bishop Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, Art. i. p. 32. Bunsen gives us the following, as the "Primitive Form" of the Ante-Nicene Creed of the Church of Alexandria, of which Church Athanasius was at a later period bishop: "I believe in the only true God, the Father Almighty: And in his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour: And in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life."—Hippolytus, vol. ii.p. 97] It is simply and entirely Unitarian. The "divine threefoldness" is there; but "the Father Almighty" is alone styled "God." Not a word, not a hint of the Personality of the Holy Spirit, or of the Deity of Christ, who is described as "the only-begotten Son" of God, and "our Lord." Coleridge thought it "might be possible to deduce the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity" from it; but admitted, that "assuredly it is not fully expressed therein." . . "It has," he says in another place, "it appears to me, indirectly (why not directly?) favored Arianism and Socinianism." [Works, vol ii. pp. 229.] Well is it remarked by Mr. Wilson—"A Trinity, such as is acknowledged by Christian Unitarians, may be easily deduced from this Creed; but how it can be possible to deduce from it Trinitarianism, or a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, is to us as inconceivable as it would be to infer this dogma from the simple declaration of the Apostle Peter, that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy Spirit and with power." [John Wilson's "Unitarian Principles," etc. (a most valuable work) p. 261. Prof. Schaff, also, in his "History of the Primitive Church," declares the Apostles' Creed to be "trinitarian in structure"; and says that it "gradually grew" out of "the trinitarian baptismal formula"! p. 121. Trinitarians must be hard pushed, when the mere juxtaposition of terms, viz. of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in a paragraph, is used for such a tremendous conclusion as that doctrine of the Trinity which this learned scholar holds.] Dr. Bushnell explicitly says: "If we examine the history of these first ages, we find them speaking, in the utmost simplicity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but having still, confessedly, no speculative theory or dogmatic scheme of Trinity. The word, in fact, is not yet invented. ... If you desire to see the form in which they summed up the Christian truth, you have it in what is called the Apostles' Creed. This beautiful compend was gradually prepared or accumulated in the age prior to theology; most of it, probably, in the time of the Apostolic Fathers. [So called, from having lived and conversed with Apostles. They are six in number; Barnabas the companion of St. Paul; Clement, Bishop of Rome; Hermas; Ignatius Bishop of Antioch; Polycarp "the blessed," as Irenaeus styles him, Bishop of Smyrna; and Papias, the companion of Polycarp. The first in order of the Christian writers, any of whose works have come down to us, is Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, about twenty years after the last above named.] It is purely historic—a simple compendium of Christian fact, without a trace of what we call doctrine; that is, nothing is drawn out into speculative propositions, or propounded as a dogma, in terms of science."
[God in Christ, pp. 286, 287. Dr. B. speaks of the word "trinity" as not "yet invented." Theophilus of Antioch, near the close of the second century, was, as I have before mentioned, the first to use the Greek word TRIAS; "but," Hagenbach says, "not in the ecclesiastical sense of the term "Trinity." This triad of Theophilus was simply the Father, Son, and Spirit, as they appear in the "baptismal formula," and in Paul's benediction, 2 Cor.13 :14. Near the same time Tertullian at Carthage introduced the Latin word trinitas; which Hagenbach says, "has a more comprehensive doctrinal import." Hist, of Doctrines, vol i. p. 128.]
I repeat that this Creed is strictly Unitarian; and shows, in addition to the other testimonies before brought from the Fathers, how truly Unitarian the early centuries were. If there was any Trinity in the Church, then, it must have been what Wilson not inaptly terms—-"The Unitarian Trinity"; the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, taught and held from the beginning, and held firmly by us to this day in "its native and beautiful simplicity," and apart from "all vain subtilties, all mysterious researches, every thing that was beyond the reach of common capacities." These are the words of Mosheim, attesting the fact that the Apostles' Creed comprehended "the Christian system" as inculcated by its early teachers. Afterwards, when the historian comes to the beginning of the fourth century and the great controversy which then arose, his language is very distinct and remarkable. "The subject of this fatal controversy, which kindled such deplorable divisions in the Christian world, was the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead; a doctrine which, in the three preceding centuries, had happily escaped the vain curiosity of human researches, and been left undefined and undetermined by any particular set of ideas." [Eccles. Hist. vol. i. pp. 149, 314.]
I pass now to the Nicene Creed. This was adopted by the famous Council assembled by command of the Emperor Constantine at Nice, in the year 325. In the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, the second of the Creeds is often called the Nicene Creed; but in exact truth it is a combination of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, with some later additions; the latter Creed having been adopted in the year 381. All beyond the words "Holy Ghost" is from the latter.
In the first place, then, this Creed declares explicitly the doctrine of one Almighty God thus:
"We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible."
It then says of the Son:
"And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten, the only-begotten of the Father; that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; by whom all things were made, both in heaven and in earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, descended and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and will come to judge of the living and the dead."
Remark, that Christ is here expressly, and in exact accordance with Scripture, called "Lord." Next, he is said to be "begotten"; a significant intimation of his subordination to Him who begat. Next, he is described as at most, "God of God .... true God of true God"; and every tyro in Greek knows that the preposition EK here rendered of expresses the derived origin of the person spoken of, and is often so used in the New Testament; [See Robinson's Lex. of N.T. p. 243. Schleusner's Lex. in N.T. h.v.] therefore, God out of or from God—thus distinctly marking his derived and of course subordinate being. Next, "of the substance of . . . . consubstantial with the Father." Now here was the very point of dispute between Arius and Athanasius at the Council of Nice, and to settle which this Council was called; but even Athanasius, as we have already seen, and whose party triumphed, meant only by consubstantial—of the same nature, but by no means individual oneness or identity. [Vid. supra, p. 233] This sameness of nature constituted the only equality of the Father and the Son which the Nicenians asserted. In all this, the inferiority and subordination of the Son is apparent; and although it be acknowledged that they decided Christ to be God, they made him nevertheless a derived, and not a self-existent God.
Of the Holy Ghost, the Creed, in its original form, merely says: "And (we believe) in the Holy Ghost." Nothing is said of its deity or Godhead. That point had not yet been reached.
[The original Creed closes with this anathema: "Those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or being, and is created, is changeable or alterable, the Catholic Church anathematises." But Gieseler remarks (see the reference in the previous note)—"Even here the sentiment that the Son exists by the will of the Father, and is less than He, is not spoken against." The anathema was directed in the most exact terms against Arius and his party, who denied the consubstantialness or sameness of nature of the Son with the Father; and who insisted that he was made out of nothing, and, of course, though the first and highest, a created being.]
What, then, is proved down to the year of our Lord 325? First, that the Church, down to the writing of our fourth Gospel, or A.D. 68—the Church, as it existed from the beginning, and as it grew up in the immediate charge of the Apostles of its Divine Founder and Head—knew nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, or of his proper, underived Deity. This, strictly speaking, is the only primitive, Apostolic Church; and this was simply and purely Unitarian. Next, that the Fathers, Ante-Nicene and Nicene, asserted a real subordination, and of course, a real inferiority of the Son to the Father. Next, that they did not hold the proper eternity of the Son as of a real person, or individual, conscious being; but rather, as of an attribute or property of the Father. And lastly, they denied that the Son was numerically or identically the same being with the Father; none of them holding any thing beyond this, that he had the same generic nature with the Father, that is, as a human child is of the same nature with his parent. System or Creed-making had ventured one step towards thorough-going Trinitarianism — the Deification of Christ in this derivative and subordinate sense.
Councils, or Synods, as the Greek word is, were now the rage. In the fourth century no less than forty-five were held, and the strife of party became as embittered as that of the worst modern political cabal.
["Thirteen Councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the Semi-Arians." (Jortin, ii. 210.) The Semi-Arians wished "that the doctrine of Christ's divinity should be settled only in such general expressions as had hitherto satisfied the Christian want, so that, with regard to the difference which divided the two contending parties, nothing was to be defined, and each might be allowed to interpret the language according to its own meaning."—Neander, Hist, of the Church, vol. ii. p. 373.]
Constantine seconded the anathema of the Nicene Council; banished Arius into a remote Illyrian province; ordered his writings to be burned, and all who possessed and attempted to conceal, or did not at once produce and cast them into the flames, to death. [Jortin, ii. 205.] But in three years afterwards he recalled Arius and his friends, and would probably have loaded him with honors had not the Presbyter suddenly died soon after his return. His son, Constantius, who finally alone held his throne, favored the Arian party. The tables were now turned, but persecution had, alas! only changed hands. "The Christian religion," says a cotemporary Roman Historian, and an eye-witness and observer of what was doing, "which, in itself, is plain and simple, Constantius confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they call Synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect (of Christians) to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." [Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 330; who thus translates from Ammianus, xxi 16.] For nearly a half century Unitarianism, in the form of Arianism, was the established religion of the Empire. •
It was in such a state of things, as the fruit of a controversy which rent Christendom in pieces, and much in accordance with the prevailing philosophy of the age, that having established the deity of the Son even in the qualified sense we have seen, the next step should be takan towards completing the dogma of the Trinity, namely, the deification of the Holy Ghost. This was done, as has been shown, at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; concerning which says Mosheim: "A hundred and fifty bishops, who were present at this Council, gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect; and fixed, in a full and determinate manner, the doctrine of three persons in one God, which is as yet received among the generality of Christians." [History of the Church, vol. i. p. 326.] But Mosheim, as I have had occasion to remark before, is too hasty. "The finishing touch" was much later. This Trinity
was a work of time. A doctrine so mysterious, so self-contradictory, not patent on the face of Scripture, was only by degrees forced on the faith of the Church. The Nicene Greed stopped with saying: "We believe in the Holy Ghost." The Creed of Constantinople declared: "We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father; who, with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets." Here distinctly appears the Personality of the Spirit; and its Deity as a joint object of worship. But the Creed says that it "proceedeth from the Father" only; and in less than fifty years "the unity and equality of the persons which necessarily resulted from holding sameness of essence," and which "was not fully acknowledged at once even by the Nicenians, but continued to be more clearly perceived, was at last expressed by Augustine for the first time with decided logical consequence." Augustine died A.D. 430; and in a little more than a century of constant strife thereafter, A.D. 589, the third Council of Toledo added the clause, "and the Son" to the Creed, and anathematised all who disbelieved the doctrine it conveyed. Thenceforth it read—"who proceedeth from the Father and the Son"; an alteration which, says Hagenbach, "afterwards led to the disruption between the eastern and western Churches."
Still the modern doctrine of the Trinity was not complete. But without attempting to follow the growth of it through the various and tedious disputes which from time to time continued to arise, it is enough to say that "the finishing touch" was reserved for the fourth Council of Lateran, so late as A.D. 1215; that Council to which belongs the baleful preeminence of having established the monstrous dogma of Transubstantiation, ordered the extermination of heretics, and by its persecuting edicts, laid the foundation of the Inquisition. By such a Council was the modern doctrine of the Trinity completed, and for the first time by authority proclaimed as the faith of the Church; that doctrine, in the words of Cudworth, of a "Trinity of Persons numerically the same, or having all one and the same singular existent essence; a doctrine which seemeth not to have been owned by any public authority in the Christian Church, save that of the Lateran Council only."
Meanwhile, Unitarianism, in its Arian form at least, notwithstanding the exterminating edicts of the Emperor Theodosius, near the close of the fourth century, and cotemporaneous with the Council of Constantinople, continued to struggle on in the hearts of faithful men. At length, about the middle of the seventh century, under the full and cruel effects of those edicts, it for a time sunk from observation. Thenceforward to the Reformation in the sixteenth century were the "Dark Ages"; during which the power of the so-called Catholic Church became despotic, and by and by rioted unchecked in its haughty and ruthless career.
There is no pretence, that before Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, any clear evidence has come down to us of belief in the early Church of even the derived deity of Christ. He was the first, so far as we can discover, distinctly to advance a dogma which proved to be the first fatal step in departure from the simple, primitive faith. That faith held Christ to be divine, only as having pre-existed, or as having been miraculously born, coming on a divine mission, holding a lofty official rank by the special appointment of God. But even Justin held and taught this dogma of Christ's deity, in a manner utterly at variance with the modern idea of the co-equality of the three persons of the Godhead. He speaks of Christ as "next in rank" to God; he says, "Him we reverence next after God"; he declares, that "the Father is the author to him both of his existence and of his being powerful, and of his being Lord and God." Emphatically—" I say, that he never did anything but what that God who made all things, and above whom there is no God, willed that he should do and say." [Apol. i. p. 63, Dial. c. Trypho. pp. 252, 282.] Irenaeus, A.d. 178, says: "All the Evangelists have delivered to us the doctrine of One God, and One Christ, the Son of God." And again: "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... of Him it is that Paul declared: 'There is One God, even the Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.'" [Lib. ii. cap. 3; iii. cap. 1.] Clement of Alexandria, at the close of the second century, calls the Father alone, "without beginning"; and in immediate connection describes the Son, as "the beginning and first-fruits of things, from whom we must learn the Father of all, the most ancient and beneficent of beings." [Opp p. 700.] In the beginning of the third century, we find Tertullian saying: "If the Father and the Son are to be named together, I call the Father God, and Jesus Christ, Lord; though I can call Christ God, when speaking of himself alone." "The Son is derived from the Father," he adds, "as the branch from the root, the stream from the fountain, the ray from the sun." [Adv. Prax. c. 8; c. 13.] Origen, A.d. 230, says: "He who is God of himself, is The God; as the Saviour states in his prayer to the Father, 'that they may know thee, the Only True God'; but whosoever becomes divine, by partaking of His divinity, cannot be styled, The God, but a God; among whom, especially, is the first-born of all creatures" And again: "Prayer is not to be directed to one begotten, not even to Christ himself; but to the God and Father of the universe alone, to whom also our Saviour prayed, and to whom he teaches us to pray." [Comm. ii. p. 47. Opp. tom. i. 222.] Novatus, A.D. 251, says: "The Son, to whom the divinity is communicated, is, indeed, God; but God, the Father of all, is deservedly God of all, and the originating cause of his Son, whom he begat Lord." [Cap. 23.] Arnobius, A.D. 300, calls "Christ a God, under the form of a man, speaking by order of the Supreme God;" and says, that "at length, did God Almighty, the Only God, send Christ." [Ad Gen. lib. ii. pp. 50, 57.] Lactantius, A.D. 310, says: "Christ taught that there is One God, alone to be worshipped. Never did he call himself God, because he would not have been true to his trust, if, being sent to take away a multiplicity of gods, and to declare One, he had introduced another besides. And because he assumed nothing to himself, that he might obey the commands of him who sent him, he received the dignity of Perpetual Priest, the honor of Sovereign King, the power of a Judge, the title of God." [Inst. lib. iv. c. 13.]
We have reached the time of the Council of Nice; and the series of testimonies, which I have cited merely as specimens of the manner in which the anti-Nicene and Nicene Fathers expressed themselves, is enough to show that they held views impossible to be reconciled with the received Trinitarian creeds of our day. They uniformly subordinate the Son to the Father, however they may style the former God. They make him a derived and dependent being. They trace all his gifts and powers to the Father. Even the famous Athanasius himself, who at the time of the Council was a young man, and who, about forty years afterwards, led the way for establishing the equality of the Holy Ghost with the Father and the Son—"the true doctrine," as Gregory Nazianzen calls it, in his Eulogy on Athanasius, "of the One Godhead and nature of the Three Persons"—even he, according to Bishop Bull, "concedes that the Father is justly called the only God, because He only is without origin, and is alone the fountain of divinity." [Def. Fid. Nic. iv. c. i. §6.] Very learned Trinitarians acknowledge the position for which I am contending, in regard to the theology of the fifst three centuries. Bishop Bull, whose Defence of the Nicene Creed is regarded as the great reservoir of proofs for the Trinity from Ecclesiastical History, declares, that "No one can doubt, that the Fathers who lived before the Nicene Council, acknowledged this subordination," that is, of the Son, or the Son and Spirit, to the Father; and he proceeds "to show, that the fathers who wrote after this Council, taught the same doctrine." [Def. Fid. Nic. iv, c. i. § 3.] Mr. Hill criticised this statement, but Bishop Burnet said: "It does not become Mr. Hill to find fault with the Bishop, for having asserted that the Fathers, before the Council of Nice, did conceive in the Trinity a Subordination, importing an Inequality of the two last Persons with the first. The Bishop has but too many proofs upon this Article; and none but those who never read the Ancients, or read them without attention, disown it." [Animadv. on Hill, p. 30.] Munscher, in his "Elements of Dogmatic History," says, that "respecting the consummate perfection and majesty of the Father, there was no disagreement among" the early Fathers. [Murdoch's Translation.] Cudworth declares, that "the generality of Christian Doctors, for the first three hundred years after the Apostles' times, plainly asserted the same subordination." [Intell. Sys. vol. ii. p. 417.] M. Jurieu, the French Reformer, alleges, with proof-citations, that the same view was unanimously professed by the fathers of the first three centuries. [Past. Let. p. 126. See also Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines, vol. i p. 129.]
In the light of these testimonies, what was the faith of the Nicene Council, three hundred and twenty-five years after Christ? It was virtualty that, which had been held from the time of Justin Martyr by all the ante-Nicene Fathers. It taught, indeed, that the Son was consubstantial, or, as the Creed reads in the Book of Common Prayer, "of one substance with the Father." This expression, however, did not mean, of the same numerical, identical substance, but, as Jortin expresses it, "of the same generical substance," a sameness of kind. The Son being of one substance with the Father, was thus declared to be of the same divine nature; and so far there was a natural equality between them. "But," says the Trinitarian Jortin, "according to them, (the Nicene fathers,) this natural equality excluded not a relative inequality; a majority and minority', founded upon the everlasting difference between giving and receiving, causing and being caused. . . . When they said, that the Father was God, they meant that he was God of himself, originally and underived. When they said, that the Son was God, they meant, that he was God by generation or derivation." [Jortin's Rem. on Eccles. Hist. ii. p. 202.] "What is of the same nature" said the great advocate of that early form of Trinitarianism, Athanasius, "is consubstantial"; and he illustrated it by saying, that "one man is of the same nature with another, as regards substance." Farther than this, that Council did not go. Before it sat, the highest views held by any of Christ, held him to be inferior, subordinate to God, the Father. Hence no co-equal Trinity, no Tri-Personality in the One God, no Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity; no Supreme Deity of Christ, as we nowadays hear. And in this very Council, the Supremacy of the Father, and thus the essence of the Unitarian faith, was after all sustained, as we shall the better see when we come to examine the terms of the Creed itself.
But this term, "consubstantial," by and by came to signify, not simply sameness of nature, but individual identity. Accordingly, after the middle of the fourth century, instead of the Supremacy of the Father, and the real, unqualified Subordination and Inferiority of the Son,—by virtue of which statement they were of necessity two distinct beings, -their actual numerical identity was taught. How true it is, as I have before had occasion to remark, and as will appear still clearer as I proceed, that systematic theology is but the piling up of doctrines, nay, of mere human opinions, one upon another, until the simple teachings of the Scripture, the Christianity of Christ, is well nigh covered from sight by the accretions of human speculation!
Let us now examine the early Creeds. And first, though the Scriptures set forth no formal creed of the nature of those symbols of Faith which subsequently obtained in various branches of the Church, and which have continued to be manufactured in modern times, they do in various passages enunciate very distinctly and emphatically what in this connection must be deemed and taken to be, fundamental articles of our holy religion. Ascending, then, to the highest, because, as we believe, divinely prompted, and authoritative statements on matters of faith, those of the Master and Lord of Christians, what do we find? A scribe asked him: "'Which is the first commandment of all?' And Jesus answered him: 'The first of all the commandments is, The Lord our God is One Lord This is the first commandment..... There is none other commandment greater.'" When the Scribe rejoined, and "said unto him, 'Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is One God; and there is none other but He'"—the record proceeds to tell us that "Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, and said unto him, 'Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.'" [Mark 12:29-32.] In that remarkable prayer which our Lord addressed to the Father just before he went forth to his betrayal, how explicit his language—"This Is Life Eternal, That They Might Know Thee, The Only True God, And Jesus The Christ, Whom Thou Hast Sent!" [John 17:3] So explicit — so luminous — so free from, nay, so absolutely precluding a thought of any, the least ambiguity in itself, or doubt as to its significance on the part of the reader, that to attempt to expound it, would seem as absurd as "to gild refined gold."
From the Master, turn to the disciple. When Jesus asked, "'Whom say ye that I am?' Simon Peter answered and said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.'" How emphatic the approval which our Lord pronounced: "Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonas! For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." [Matt. 16:15-17] The same disciple, on another occasion, addressed to his Master these words: "Thou hast the words of Eternal Life: and we believe and are sure, that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the Living God." [John 6:68, 69] Again; his Master had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven; and-—said Peter to the wondering witnesses, in his speech at Pentecost: "Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." He then adds to this language—of itself plain and significant enough to the most ordinary mind, one would think, as indicating Christ's dependence and the Spirit's also—this closing proclamation: "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ!" [Acts 2:33-36] And yet once more—at Cesarea, the same Apostle declared, before a Gentile audience, that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power for God was with him." [Acts 10:38]
Not a whit less distinct was the creed of Paul. To the Corinthian Church he writes: "Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many and lords many,) to us there is but One God, the Father, of whom are all things and we in Him; and One Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him." [Ep. 8:5,6] Again, to the Ephesians: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism; One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." [Ep. 4:5,6] I cannot forbear citing again, in this connection, that memorable passage in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which it would almost seem that Paul meant to guard his readers against imagining that Christ's kingly office was of independent and eternal or perpetual authority. "Then cometh the end when he (Christ) shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he (Christ) must reign, till He (God) hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For 'He (God) hath put all things under his feet.' But when it is said 'all things are put under him,' it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." [1 Cor. 15:24-28]
Finally, when the Chamberlain of the Ethiopian Queen was converted by Philip, he asked: "What doth hinder me to be baptized?" And the reply of Philip was: "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." And the Creed, the confession of faith which he made and Philip accepted, was: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God!" That was all. No Trinity, no Godhead of Christ, or of the Holy Ghost. Nor is either of these things to be found, or in the remotest way hinted at or shadowed forth, in any of the words of our Lord or his disciples which I have cited. Nay, no words, his or theirs, can be cited from Holy Writ, contradictory to, or at variance with them. His divine Sonship, Messiahship, Kingship, Lordship, are expressly claimed, recognized, declared; but never his Godhead or Deity, in these Scriptural Creeds or Statements of Faith.
True, as the word is commonly used—a use, by the way, which has excited a very unhappy prejudice, I often think, against the thing—there are in the New Testament no Creeds. Our Lord and his Apostles prescribed no set Articles of Faith, no carefully-drawn Symbol, to be through all time subscribed and transmitted as of binding authority upon his Universal Church. We find here and there a "Credo" an "I believe" in which an individual expresses his faith in "the Christ, the Son of God," and a "Blessed art thou" follows it. But nothing beyond, except that it is placed on the holy record and sent down the stream of time, for the example, instruction, guidance of after ages. When, however, we leave the Scriptures, and open the History of the Church after the age of inspiration and miracle had passed, we at once meet with Creeds, Symbols, Declarations of Faith; mostly drawn up and voted in by General Councils, as they were called, summoned together by the edict of an Emperor; who, though styled Christian, knew as much, and often cared as much about the merits of the discussion, as the most stupid slaves at his feet. These Councils were to settle the points in dispute, and establish the faith of the Church.*
[*How far deference should be paid to the decisions of such Councils my readers may be aided in judging by the following extract from Dr. Jortin, one of the lights of the English Establishment, of course a Trinitarian, but a most candid and able writer.
"Consider a little by what various motives these various men may be influenced; as, by reverence to the Emperor, or to his Councillors and favorites, his slaves and eunuchs; by fear of offending some great Prelate, as a Bishop of Rome or of Alexandria, who had it in his power to insult, vex, and plague all the bishops within and without his jurisdiction; by the dread of passing for heretics, and of being calumniated, reviled, hated, anathematised, excommunicated, imprisoned, banished, fined, beggared, starved, if they refused to submit; by compliance with some active, leading, and imperious spirits, by a deference to a majority, by a love of dictating and domineering, of applause and respect, by vanity and ambition, by a total ignorance of the question in debate, or a total indifference about it, by private friendships, by enmity and resentment, by old prejudices, by hopes of gain, by an indolent disposition, by good nature, by the fatigue of attending, and a desire to be at home, by the love of peace and quiet, and a hatred of contention, etc.
"Whosoever takes these things into due consideration, will not be disposed to pay a blind deference to the authority of General Councils, and will rather be inclined to judge that 'the Council held by the Apostles was the first and the last in which the Holy Spirit may be affirmed to have presided.' .... If such Councils make righteous decrees, it must have been by strange good luck."—Notes on Eccles. History, vol. ii. 183-4.]
Before, however, the age of these Councils, we find in Irenaeus of Lyons, who flourished near the close of the second century, and in Tertullian of Carthage a few years later, statements of the ancient faith largely resembling those of what is commonly called the Apostles' Creed. That Creed in form, is not found earlier than in Rufinus of Aquileia at the close of the fourth century, who transmitted a tradition which had reached him, that it was actually composed by the Apostles before they separated to their missionary work. The tradition kept its hold on the Latin Church till the Reformation, when its Apostolic origin began to be questioned by Erasmus and others, and now in the words of Sir Peter King, "All learned persons are agreed, that it was never composed by the Apostles." [Const, of the Prim. Church, Pt. ii. p. 57.] It is as Bunsen expresses it, "an epitome of the leading facts related in the Gospel as to the Father, Son, and Spirit." He adds: "It has no value but its faithfulness, and, no authority but that of its origin. Still the point round which these epitomised elements have crystallised is that, which constitutes the whole doctrinal consciousness of the ancient Church: the belief in the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
This, in the mind of the Primitive Church, was the only real doctrinal point respecting which the historical records of Christianity are in the highest sense authoritative. Again he says: "The most remarkable and important character of the Apostles' Creed is consequently this, that it purports to be nothing but an epitome of the New Testament based upon the belief in that divine threefoldness." [Hippolytus, vol. ii. p. 93.] Mark that word of this most learned scholar, and competent critic, the Chevalier Bunsen—"threefoldness"—nay, "divine threefoldness"; and he a Trinitarian. If this "divine threefoldness" be all that is required to be believed in order to be orthodox, Unitarians should be esteemed such. Nay, here is just the point. We never have disputed this "divine threefoldness." What we have disputed and denied, and what we do still dispute and deny, is the Trinity as held in modern times and in our own day, in the forms of Tri-unity, Tri-personality, a Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity, in the Godhead. We deny that according to the teachings of Christ and his Apostles, God exists in Three co-equal, co-eternal Persons. We affirm that He exists in One Person, revealed by our Lord as the Father. All the while we assent to and believe, with the Supreme Deity of the Father, the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We take up, then, the so-called "Apostles' Creed," admitting it to be the most ancient formal creed extant—and what does it say?
"I believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Jesus Christ His only-begotten Son, our Lord; who was born of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Ghost; was crucified under Pontius Pilate; buried; arose from the dead on the third day; ascended to the heavens, and sits at the right hand of the Father, whence he will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the remission of sins, and the resurrection of the body."
This is the form given by Dr. Murdoch in a note to his edition of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History,* as "the common form of it in the fourth century"; and where will you find in it a word, a hint, of any thing contrary to Christian Unitarianism? You cannot. ["Vol. i. p. 80. It is remarkable that in the notices of it in Irenaeus, and Tertullian a little later, the first clause invariably reads ** One God."—Sir Peter King says, that "in all the most primitive Creeds (he means forms of this creed) whether Latin or Greek, this article runs "I believe in One God" or "in the Only God." (Hist. Apostles' Creed, p. 50.) So Bishop Pearson, Exposition of the Creed, Art. i. p. 32. Bunsen gives us the following, as the "Primitive Form" of the Ante-Nicene Creed of the Church of Alexandria, of which Church Athanasius was at a later period bishop: "I believe in the only true God, the Father Almighty: And in his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour: And in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life."—Hippolytus, vol. ii.p. 97] It is simply and entirely Unitarian. The "divine threefoldness" is there; but "the Father Almighty" is alone styled "God." Not a word, not a hint of the Personality of the Holy Spirit, or of the Deity of Christ, who is described as "the only-begotten Son" of God, and "our Lord." Coleridge thought it "might be possible to deduce the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity" from it; but admitted, that "assuredly it is not fully expressed therein." . . "It has," he says in another place, "it appears to me, indirectly (why not directly?) favored Arianism and Socinianism." [Works, vol ii. pp. 229.] Well is it remarked by Mr. Wilson—"A Trinity, such as is acknowledged by Christian Unitarians, may be easily deduced from this Creed; but how it can be possible to deduce from it Trinitarianism, or a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, is to us as inconceivable as it would be to infer this dogma from the simple declaration of the Apostle Peter, that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the holy Spirit and with power." [John Wilson's "Unitarian Principles," etc. (a most valuable work) p. 261. Prof. Schaff, also, in his "History of the Primitive Church," declares the Apostles' Creed to be "trinitarian in structure"; and says that it "gradually grew" out of "the trinitarian baptismal formula"! p. 121. Trinitarians must be hard pushed, when the mere juxtaposition of terms, viz. of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in a paragraph, is used for such a tremendous conclusion as that doctrine of the Trinity which this learned scholar holds.] Dr. Bushnell explicitly says: "If we examine the history of these first ages, we find them speaking, in the utmost simplicity, of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but having still, confessedly, no speculative theory or dogmatic scheme of Trinity. The word, in fact, is not yet invented. ... If you desire to see the form in which they summed up the Christian truth, you have it in what is called the Apostles' Creed. This beautiful compend was gradually prepared or accumulated in the age prior to theology; most of it, probably, in the time of the Apostolic Fathers. [So called, from having lived and conversed with Apostles. They are six in number; Barnabas the companion of St. Paul; Clement, Bishop of Rome; Hermas; Ignatius Bishop of Antioch; Polycarp "the blessed," as Irenaeus styles him, Bishop of Smyrna; and Papias, the companion of Polycarp. The first in order of the Christian writers, any of whose works have come down to us, is Justin Martyr, A.D. 140, about twenty years after the last above named.] It is purely historic—a simple compendium of Christian fact, without a trace of what we call doctrine; that is, nothing is drawn out into speculative propositions, or propounded as a dogma, in terms of science."
[God in Christ, pp. 286, 287. Dr. B. speaks of the word "trinity" as not "yet invented." Theophilus of Antioch, near the close of the second century, was, as I have before mentioned, the first to use the Greek word TRIAS; "but," Hagenbach says, "not in the ecclesiastical sense of the term "Trinity." This triad of Theophilus was simply the Father, Son, and Spirit, as they appear in the "baptismal formula," and in Paul's benediction, 2 Cor.13 :14. Near the same time Tertullian at Carthage introduced the Latin word trinitas; which Hagenbach says, "has a more comprehensive doctrinal import." Hist, of Doctrines, vol i. p. 128.]
I repeat that this Creed is strictly Unitarian; and shows, in addition to the other testimonies before brought from the Fathers, how truly Unitarian the early centuries were. If there was any Trinity in the Church, then, it must have been what Wilson not inaptly terms—-"The Unitarian Trinity"; the doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, taught and held from the beginning, and held firmly by us to this day in "its native and beautiful simplicity," and apart from "all vain subtilties, all mysterious researches, every thing that was beyond the reach of common capacities." These are the words of Mosheim, attesting the fact that the Apostles' Creed comprehended "the Christian system" as inculcated by its early teachers. Afterwards, when the historian comes to the beginning of the fourth century and the great controversy which then arose, his language is very distinct and remarkable. "The subject of this fatal controversy, which kindled such deplorable divisions in the Christian world, was the doctrine of three persons in the Godhead; a doctrine which, in the three preceding centuries, had happily escaped the vain curiosity of human researches, and been left undefined and undetermined by any particular set of ideas." [Eccles. Hist. vol. i. pp. 149, 314.]
I pass now to the Nicene Creed. This was adopted by the famous Council assembled by command of the Emperor Constantine at Nice, in the year 325. In the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, the second of the Creeds is often called the Nicene Creed; but in exact truth it is a combination of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds, with some later additions; the latter Creed having been adopted in the year 381. All beyond the words "Holy Ghost" is from the latter.
In the first place, then, this Creed declares explicitly the doctrine of one Almighty God thus:
"We believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible."
It then says of the Son:
"And in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten, the only-begotten of the Father; that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; by whom all things were made, both in heaven and in earth; who for us men, and for our salvation, descended and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into the heavens, and will come to judge of the living and the dead."
Remark, that Christ is here expressly, and in exact accordance with Scripture, called "Lord." Next, he is said to be "begotten"; a significant intimation of his subordination to Him who begat. Next, he is described as at most, "God of God .... true God of true God"; and every tyro in Greek knows that the preposition EK here rendered of expresses the derived origin of the person spoken of, and is often so used in the New Testament; [See Robinson's Lex. of N.T. p. 243. Schleusner's Lex. in N.T. h.v.] therefore, God out of or from God—thus distinctly marking his derived and of course subordinate being. Next, "of the substance of . . . . consubstantial with the Father." Now here was the very point of dispute between Arius and Athanasius at the Council of Nice, and to settle which this Council was called; but even Athanasius, as we have already seen, and whose party triumphed, meant only by consubstantial—of the same nature, but by no means individual oneness or identity. [Vid. supra, p. 233] This sameness of nature constituted the only equality of the Father and the Son which the Nicenians asserted. In all this, the inferiority and subordination of the Son is apparent; and although it be acknowledged that they decided Christ to be God, they made him nevertheless a derived, and not a self-existent God.
Of the Holy Ghost, the Creed, in its original form, merely says: "And (we believe) in the Holy Ghost." Nothing is said of its deity or Godhead. That point had not yet been reached.
[The original Creed closes with this anathema: "Those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or being, and is created, is changeable or alterable, the Catholic Church anathematises." But Gieseler remarks (see the reference in the previous note)—"Even here the sentiment that the Son exists by the will of the Father, and is less than He, is not spoken against." The anathema was directed in the most exact terms against Arius and his party, who denied the consubstantialness or sameness of nature of the Son with the Father; and who insisted that he was made out of nothing, and, of course, though the first and highest, a created being.]
What, then, is proved down to the year of our Lord 325? First, that the Church, down to the writing of our fourth Gospel, or A.D. 68—the Church, as it existed from the beginning, and as it grew up in the immediate charge of the Apostles of its Divine Founder and Head—knew nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead, or of his proper, underived Deity. This, strictly speaking, is the only primitive, Apostolic Church; and this was simply and purely Unitarian. Next, that the Fathers, Ante-Nicene and Nicene, asserted a real subordination, and of course, a real inferiority of the Son to the Father. Next, that they did not hold the proper eternity of the Son as of a real person, or individual, conscious being; but rather, as of an attribute or property of the Father. And lastly, they denied that the Son was numerically or identically the same being with the Father; none of them holding any thing beyond this, that he had the same generic nature with the Father, that is, as a human child is of the same nature with his parent. System or Creed-making had ventured one step towards thorough-going Trinitarianism — the Deification of Christ in this derivative and subordinate sense.
Councils, or Synods, as the Greek word is, were now the rage. In the fourth century no less than forty-five were held, and the strife of party became as embittered as that of the worst modern political cabal.
["Thirteen Councils against Arius, fifteen for him, and seventeen for the Semi-Arians." (Jortin, ii. 210.) The Semi-Arians wished "that the doctrine of Christ's divinity should be settled only in such general expressions as had hitherto satisfied the Christian want, so that, with regard to the difference which divided the two contending parties, nothing was to be defined, and each might be allowed to interpret the language according to its own meaning."—Neander, Hist, of the Church, vol. ii. p. 373.]
Constantine seconded the anathema of the Nicene Council; banished Arius into a remote Illyrian province; ordered his writings to be burned, and all who possessed and attempted to conceal, or did not at once produce and cast them into the flames, to death. [Jortin, ii. 205.] But in three years afterwards he recalled Arius and his friends, and would probably have loaded him with honors had not the Presbyter suddenly died soon after his return. His son, Constantius, who finally alone held his throne, favored the Arian party. The tables were now turned, but persecution had, alas! only changed hands. "The Christian religion," says a cotemporary Roman Historian, and an eye-witness and observer of what was doing, "which, in itself, is plain and simple, Constantius confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they call Synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect (of Christians) to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." [Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 330; who thus translates from Ammianus, xxi 16.] For nearly a half century Unitarianism, in the form of Arianism, was the established religion of the Empire. •
It was in such a state of things, as the fruit of a controversy which rent Christendom in pieces, and much in accordance with the prevailing philosophy of the age, that having established the deity of the Son even in the qualified sense we have seen, the next step should be takan towards completing the dogma of the Trinity, namely, the deification of the Holy Ghost. This was done, as has been shown, at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; concerning which says Mosheim: "A hundred and fifty bishops, who were present at this Council, gave the finishing touch to what the Council of Nice had left imperfect; and fixed, in a full and determinate manner, the doctrine of three persons in one God, which is as yet received among the generality of Christians." [History of the Church, vol. i. p. 326.] But Mosheim, as I have had occasion to remark before, is too hasty. "The finishing touch" was much later. This Trinity
was a work of time. A doctrine so mysterious, so self-contradictory, not patent on the face of Scripture, was only by degrees forced on the faith of the Church. The Nicene Greed stopped with saying: "We believe in the Holy Ghost." The Creed of Constantinople declared: "We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father; who, with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets." Here distinctly appears the Personality of the Spirit; and its Deity as a joint object of worship. But the Creed says that it "proceedeth from the Father" only; and in less than fifty years "the unity and equality of the persons which necessarily resulted from holding sameness of essence," and which "was not fully acknowledged at once even by the Nicenians, but continued to be more clearly perceived, was at last expressed by Augustine for the first time with decided logical consequence." Augustine died A.D. 430; and in a little more than a century of constant strife thereafter, A.D. 589, the third Council of Toledo added the clause, "and the Son" to the Creed, and anathematised all who disbelieved the doctrine it conveyed. Thenceforth it read—"who proceedeth from the Father and the Son"; an alteration which, says Hagenbach, "afterwards led to the disruption between the eastern and western Churches."
Still the modern doctrine of the Trinity was not complete. But without attempting to follow the growth of it through the various and tedious disputes which from time to time continued to arise, it is enough to say that "the finishing touch" was reserved for the fourth Council of Lateran, so late as A.D. 1215; that Council to which belongs the baleful preeminence of having established the monstrous dogma of Transubstantiation, ordered the extermination of heretics, and by its persecuting edicts, laid the foundation of the Inquisition. By such a Council was the modern doctrine of the Trinity completed, and for the first time by authority proclaimed as the faith of the Church; that doctrine, in the words of Cudworth, of a "Trinity of Persons numerically the same, or having all one and the same singular existent essence; a doctrine which seemeth not to have been owned by any public authority in the Christian Church, save that of the Lateran Council only."
Meanwhile, Unitarianism, in its Arian form at least, notwithstanding the exterminating edicts of the Emperor Theodosius, near the close of the fourth century, and cotemporaneous with the Council of Constantinople, continued to struggle on in the hearts of faithful men. At length, about the middle of the seventh century, under the full and cruel effects of those edicts, it for a time sunk from observation. Thenceforward to the Reformation in the sixteenth century were the "Dark Ages"; during which the power of the so-called Catholic Church became despotic, and by and by rioted unchecked in its haughty and ruthless career.
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