Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 40

The Origenist bishops of Syria and Asia Minor had in the years 269-272, after several efforts, succeeded in deposing Paul of Samosata from the See of Antioch. This remarkable man was the ablest pre-Nicene representative of Adoptionist Monarchianism. The Man Jesus was inhabited by the 'Word,' i.e. by an impersonal power of God, distinct from the Logos or reason (wisdom) inherent in God as an attribute, which descended upon him at His Baptism. His union with God, a union of Will, was unswerving, and by virtue of it He overcame the sin of mankind, worked miracles, and entered on a condition of Deification. He is God ek prokopes (cf. Luke ii. 52) by virtue of progress in perfection. That is in brief the system of Paul, and we cannot wonder at his deposition. For the striking points of contact with Arianism (two 'Wisdoms,' two 'Words,' prokope: cf. Orat. c. Ar. i. 5, &c.) we have to account [23] . The theology of Arius is a compromise between the Origenist doctrine of the Person of Christ and the pure Monarchian Adoptionism of Paul of Samosata; or rather it engrafts the former upon the latter as the foundation principle, seriously modifying each to suit the necessity of combining the two. This compromise was not due to Arius himself but to his teacher, Lucian the Martyr. A native himself of Samosata, he stood in some relation of attachment (not clearly defineable) to Paul. Under him, he was at the head of a critical, exegetical, and theological school at Antioch. Upon the deposition of Paul he appears not so much to have been formally excommunicated as to have refused to acquiesce in the new order of things. Under Domnus and his two successors, he was in a state of suspended communion [24] ; but eventually was reconciled with the bishop (Cyril?) and died as a martyr at Nicomedia, Jan. 7, 312.

[23] The theological genesis of Paul's system is obscure. The theory of Newman that he was under strong Jewish influences is largely based upon the late and apparently quite erroneous tradition that his patroness Zenobia was a Jewess; see p. 296, note 9^a, and Gwatkin, p. 57, and note 3. Harnack regards him as the representative of 'archaic' East-Syrian adoptionism such as pervades the 'Discussion of Archelaus with Manes;' see Routh, Rell. v. especially pp. 178-184. But Paul would not have spoken of Mary as 'Dei Genetrix,' p. 128; I cannot see more in these 'Acta' than a naive adoptionism homologous to the 'naive modalism' of much early Christian language, but like it not representative of the entire view of those who use it; we must also note that the statements of 'Archelaus' are coloured by reaction against the docetism of 'Manes;' but Paul may well have taken up this naive adoptionism, and, by strict Aristotelian logic, developed it as the exclusive basis of his system. Whether Paul's use of the idea of the Logos betrays the faintest influence of Origen is to me, at least, extremely uncertain.

[24] aposunagogos emeinen, Alex. Alexand. in Thdt.; the objections of Gwatkin, p. 18, note, are generously meant rather than convincing: the 'creed of Lucian' is not usable without discrimination for Lucian's position: see discussion by Caspari A.u.N.Q. p. 42, note.

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