XV. He was sent, but as man, for He was of a
twofold Nature; for He was wearied, and hungered, and was thirsty, and
was in an agony, and shed tears, according to the nature of a corporeal
being. And if the expression be also used of Him as God, the
meaning is that the Father’s good pleasure is to be considered a
Mission, for to this He refers all that concerns Himself; both that He
may honour the Eternal Principle, and because He will not be taken to
be an antagonistic God. And whereas it is written both that He
was betrayed, and also that He gave Himself up Cf. ἐν
τῇ νυκτὶ ἐν ᾗ
παρεδίδοτο,
μᾶλλον δε
ἑαυτὸν
παρεδίδου.
Canon of Liturgy of S. Mark (Swainson p. 517). Ea nocte qua
tradidit seipsum. Lit. Copt. S. Basil (Ib.). Cum statuisset
se tradere. Coptic S. Basil (Hammond, p. 209) Rot. Vatic. and
Cod. Ross. of S. Mark, has only τ.
ν. ᾗ ἑαυτ,
παρεδ. (Swainson, 50); so too S.
Basil (Ib., 81) in Cod. B. M., 22749 and Barberini of S. Chrys. (Ib.,
91); but the whole expression is in Chrys. (cent. xi., ib., 129) and
Greek S. James (78. 272–3), but Syriac S. James has “in qua
nocte tradendus erat.” (Canon Univ., Æthiop. Hammond,
258). Pridie quam patereturis the form in the Canon
of the Roman, Ambrosian, and Sarum Missals; but the Mozarabic, which is
largely of an Eastern character, has in qua nocte
tradebatur. (Hammond, 333).
and that He was raised up by the Father, and taken up into heaven; and
on the other hand, that He raised Himself and went up; the
former statement of each pair refers to the good pleasure of the
Father, the latter to His own Power. Are you then to be allowed
to dwell upon all that humiliates Him, while passing over all that
exalts Him, and to count on your side the fact that He suffered, but to
leave out of the account the fact that it was of His own will?
See what even now the Word has to suffer. By one set He is
honoured as God, but is confused with the Father, The Sabellian
heresy may be briefly described as the doctrine of One God exercising
three offices, as opposed to the Catholic Faith of One God in three
Persons. Sabellius himself was a Priest of the Libyan Pentapolis,
who at Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinus embraced the heresy of
Notus, which maintained that God the Father suffered for us on the
cross in the form of Christ. His followers, who openly declared
themselves first about a.d. 357, thought that
God, to Whom as the Source of all things the name of Father is given,
is called the Son when He united Himself to the humanity of Jesus for
the work of our redemption; and in like manner He is the Holy Spirit
when manifested for the work of sanctification. Sabellius was
condemned by a Council held at Rome, probably in 258; again at
Nicæa, and again at Constantinople, where Sabellian Baptism was
pronounced invalid. by another He is dishonoured as mere
flesh Arianism was the
result of a strong opposition to Sabellianism, coupled with a
misunderstanding of the argument against it. There was, no doubt,
a danger of falling into the opposite error of Tritheism, to avoid
which Arianism “divided the Substance” and
virtually—and in the end explicity—denied the Godhead of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Arius was a Priest of Alexandria, and it
was there that he began to publish his opinions, in the early years of
the Fourth Century (318); but Newman traces the origin of the heresy to
Antioch and its Judaizing tendency. At a meeting of the clergy in
Alexandria the Bishop, S. Alexander, gave an address on the coeternity,
and coequality of the Father and the Son, and used the expression
τὴν
αὐτὴν οὐσίαν
ἔχειν, that They had the same
Substance. Arius protested against this as a Sabellian statement,
and used the words κτίσμα (creature) and
ποίημα (a thing made) of
the Son, adding the sentence which became so famous, ἦν
ὅτε οὐκ
ἦν,—there was a time when the Son did not
exist. Having ineffectually tried private remonstrance, S.
Alexander brought the matter in 321 before his Provincial Synod, in
which were present about 100 Egyptian and Pentapolitan Bishops, who
after giving the matter a patient hearing, excommunicated Arius and his
principal adherents. But it was too late to undo the
mischief. The heresy spread widely, and the whole Eastern Church
was stirred by the controversy. At last a great Council of the
whole Church met at Nicæa in 325, summoned by the Emperor; and
there the heresy was unequivocally condemned, and the great Creed
propounded with its watchword, the Homoousion. The false teaching
had however struck its roots deep and wide; and though now banned by
the anathema of the Church, it was long in dying; and indeed at one
time, it seemed as if—humanly speaking—it must swamp the
whole Catholic Church. Under various forms the Semi-Arians who
claimed to differ from the faith of Nicæa only by a single letter,
the Aetians and Eunomians, who went to the furthest extreme of the
Falsehood (Anomœans), and many others, the heresy spread far and
wide: and when S. Gregory came to Constantinople there was not
one Catholic Church or Priest to be found in the place, and only a few
scattered folk who still held to the Faith of the Consubstantial.
Gregory’s wonderful discourses however came to their aid, and
partly under his presidency was held the Second Œcumenical Synod,
which condemned the heresy of Macedonius, a still further development
of Arianism, which denied also the Deity of the Holy Ghost.
Arianism survived for another two centuries among the Goths and
Vandals, the Burgundians and Lombards; but it never rose again as a
power in the Church. and severed from the Godhead. With
which of them will He be most angry, or rather, which shall He forgive,
those who injuriously confound Him or those who divide Him? For
the former ought to have distinguished, and the latter to have united
Him; the one in number, the other in Godhead. Stumblest Thou at
His flesh? So did the Jews. Or dost thou call Him a
Samaritan, and…I will not say the rest. Dost thou
disbelieve in His Godhead? This did not even the demons, O thou
who art less believing than demons and more stupid than Jews.
Those did perceive that the name of Son implies equality of rank; these
did know that He who drove them out was God, for they were convinced of
it by their own experience. But you will admit neither the
equality nor the Godhead. It would have been better for you to
have been either a Jew or a demoniac (if I may utter an absurdity),
than in uncircumcision and in sound health to be so wicked and ungodly
in your attitude of mind.