enlightened reason, which leads us to be sure that, according to the obvious meaning of the inspired text, there is some real sense in which the Father is not the Son; that the Sender and the Sent cannot be in all respects the same; nor can the Son be said to make Himself inferior to the Father, and condescend to become man,-to come from God, and then again to return to Him,—if, after all, there is no distinction beyond that of words, between those Blessed and Adorable Agents in the scheme of our redemption. Besides, without

venturing to intrude into things not as yet seen, it appeared evident to the primitive Church, that, in matter of fact, the Son of God, though equal in dignity of nature to the Father, and One with Him in essence, was described in Scripture as undertaking such offices of ministration and subjection, as are never ascribed, and therefore may not without blasphemy be ascribed, to the self-existent Father. Accordingly, the name of Patripassian was affixed to Praxeas, Noetus, and their followers, in memorial of the unscriptural tenet which was immediately involved in their denial of the distinction of Persons in the Godhead.

Such doubtless was the doctrine of Sabellius, if regard be paid to the express declarations of the Fathers. The discriminating Athanasius plainly affirms it, in his defence of Dionysius1. The Semi-Arian Creed called the Macrostich, published at Antioch, gives a like testimony2; distinguishing, moreover,

1 De Sent. Dionys. § 5. 9, &c. [Orat. iii. 36. Origen. in Ep. ad. Tit. t. iv. p. 695: "Duos definimus, ne (ut vestra perversitas infert) Pater ipse credatur natus et passus." Tertull. adv. Prax. 13.]

2 Athan de Synod. § 26.

between the Sabellian doctrine, and the doctrines of the Paulianists and Photinians, to which some modern critics have compared it. Cyprian and Austin, living in Africa, bear express witness to the existence of the Patripassian sect3. On the other hand, it cannot be denied, that authorities exist favourable to a view of the doctrine different from the above, and these accordingly may lead us, in agreement with certain theological writers4, without interfering with the account of the heresy already given, to describe a modification of it which commonly succeeded to its primitive form.

The following apparently inconsistent testimonies, suggest both the history and the doctrine of this second form of Sabellianism. While the Montanists and Sabellians are classed together by some authors, there is separate evidence of the connexion of each of these with the Gnostics. Again, Ambrosius, the convert and friend of Origen was originally a Valentinian, or Marcionite, or Sabellian, according to different writers. Further, the doctrine of Sabellius is compared to that of Valentinus by Alexander of Alexandria, and (apparently) by a Roman Council (A.D. 324); and by St. Austin it is referred indifferently to Praxeas, or to Hermogenes, a Gnostic. On the other hand, one Leucius is described as a Gnostic and Montanist5. It would appear then, that it is so repugnant to the plain word of Scripture, and to the

3 Cyprian. Epist. lxxiii. Tillemont, Mem. iv. 100.

4 Beausobre, Hist. de Manich. iii. 6. § 7. Mosheim, de Reb. ant. Const. sæc. ii. § 68; sæc. iii. § 32. Lardner, Cred. part ii. ch. 41.

5 Vide Tillemont, vol. ii. p. 204; iv. p. 100, &c. Waterland's Works, vol. i. p. 236, 237.

most elementary notions of doctrine thence derived, to suppose that Almighty God is in every sense one with the human nature of Christ, that a disputant, especially an innovator, cannot long maintain such a position. It removes the mystery of the Trinity, only by leaving the doctrine of the Incarnation in a form still more strange, than that which it unavoidably presents to the imagination. Pressed, accordingly, by the authority of Scripture, the Sabellian, instead of speaking of the substantial union of God with Christ, would probably begin to obscure his meaning in the decorum of a figurative language. He would speak of the presence rather than the existence of God in His chosen servant; and this presence, if allowed to declaim, he would represent as a certain power or emanation from the Centre of light and truth; if forced by his opponent into a definite statement, he would own to be but an inspiration, the same in kind, though superior in degree, with that which enlightened and guided the prophets. This is that second form of the Sabellian tenet, which some learned moderns have illustrated, though they must be considered to err in pronouncing it the only true one. That it should. have resulted from the difficulties of the Patripassian creed, is natural and almost necessary; and viewed merely as a conjecture, the above account of its rise reconciles the discordant testimonies of ecclesiastical history. But we have almost certain evidence of the matter of fact in Tertullian's tract against Praxeas, in which the latter is apparently represented as holding successively, the two views of doctrine which have. been here described. Parallel instances meet us in

6 In Prax. §. 27.

Simon

the history of the Gnostics and Montanists. Magus, for instance, seems to have adopted the Patripassian theory. But the Gnostic family which branched from him, modified it by means of their doctrine of emanations or æons, till in the theology of Valentinus, as in that of Cerinthus and Ebion, the incarnation of the Word, became scarcely more than the display of Divine Power with a figurative personality in the life and actions of a mere man. The Montanists, in like manner, from a virtual assumption of the Divinity of their founder, were led on, as the only way of extricating themselves from one blasphemy, into that other of denying the Personality of the Holy Spirit, and then of the Word. Whether the school of Noetus maintained its first position, we have no means of knowing; but the change to the second, or semi-humanitarian, may be detected in the Sabellians, as in Praxeas before them. In the time of Dionysius of Alexandria, the majority was Patripassian; but in the time of Alexander they advocated the Emanative, as it may be called, or in-dwelling theory 7.

2.

What there is further to be said on this subject shall be reserved for the next chapter. Here, however, it is necessary to examine, how, under these. circumstances, the controversy with the Sabellians would affect the language of ecclesiastical theology. It will be readily seen, that the line of argument by which the two errors above specified are to be met, is nearly the same: viz. that of insisting upon the

7 Theod. Hist. i. 4.

personality of the Word as distinct from the Father. For the Patripassian denied that the Word was in any real respect distinct from Him; the Emanatist, if he may so be called, denied that He was a Person, or more than an extraordinary manifestation of Divine Power. The Catholics, on the other hand, asserted His distinct personality; and necessarily appealed, in proof of this, to such texts as speak of His pre-existent relations towards the Father; in other words, His ministrative office in the revealed Economy of the Godhead. And thus, being obliged from the course of the controversy, to dwell on this truly scriptural tenet, and happening to do so without a protest against a denial, as if involved in it, of His equality with the Father in the One Indivisible Divine Nature (a protest, which nothing but the actual experience of that denial among them could render necessary or natural), they were sometimes forced by the circumstances of the case into an apparent anticipation of the heresy, which afterwards arose in the shape of Arianism.

This may be illustrated in the history of the two great pupils of Origen, who, being respectively opposed to the two varieties of Sabellianism above described, the Patripassian and the Emanative, incurred odium in a later age, as if they had been forerunners of Arius: Gregory of Neocæsarea, and Dionysius of Alexandria.

The controversy in which Dionysius was engaged with the Patripassians of Pentapolis has already been adverted to. Their tenet of the incarnation of the Father (that is, of the one God without distinction of Persons), a tenet most repugnant to every scripturally