ART. VIII. THE ANTE-NICENE TRINITARIANISM.

By Prof. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK.

The Church of the First Three Centuries: or, Notices of the Lives and Opinions of some of the Early Fathers, with Special Reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity; illustrating its late Origin and gradual Formation. By ALVAN LAM SON, D.D. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co., 245 Washington street. 1860. 8vo. Pp. 352.

[Continued from page 177.]

In a previous article we undertook to show, in the first place, that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, as developed during the first three centuries, could not have been derived from any Pagan philosophy; and, in the second place, that there was a recognised and legitimate basis for this development in the Scriptures.

III. It now remains for us to show that the Ante-Nicene Fathers, in general, were essentially Trinitarians; entertaining opinions, the only complete and logically consistent development of which was the Nicene Creed.

First in order, of course, are the Apostolic Fathers, passed in silence by Dr. Lamson, but of the greatest importance as witnesses, whether regard be had to the character of the men themselves, or to the place they hold in history. As for the men themselves, they were manifestly no philosophers, intent upon the construction of a scientific system of theology; on the contrary, they were eminently practical and simple-minded believers, not at all given to speculation, and, with the single exception of the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, making no very decided impression upon us even of native intellectual breadth and vigor. As for their place in his tory, they stand midway between the Apostles on one side,

and the converted philosophers of the second century on the other; inspiration, whose oral teachings some of them at least had enjoyed, having just ceased, and speculation having not yet begun. Such men, so conditioned, it can hardly need be said, must be the very best of witnesses, where the question is simply one of fact in regard to the faith of the early Church. The earliest of these witnesses is Clement, a Greek, chief Presbyter, afterwards called Bishop, of Rome between 91?100? A.D.* We have from his pen, in fifty-nine short chapters, an Epistle to the Corinthians, written probably about the year 96. The authenticity of this document is well established; while as to its integrity, the only probable interpolations have reference not to doctrine but polity. The occasion of writing was a dissension in the Church at Corinth, by which certain Presbyters had been unjustly deposed from office. An appeal having been made to the Church in Rome, Clement, after some delay, sent this Epistle, in which he tried by mingled reproofs and exhortations to bring back the Corinthian Christians to brotherly love and unity. Schism, and not heresy, having thus occasioned the Epistle, we need not wonder at the meagreness of its doctrinal contents; especially when we consider that the writer of it was not the inspired Apostle Paul, but only the uninspired Apostolic Clement. And yet, though there be much less than the Pauline proportion of doctrinal matter in this Epistle, what there is of doctrine incidentally introduced falls but little below the Pauline standard of orthodoxy. Special prominence is given to the doctrine of the Resurrection; although the handling of it is disfigured by the employment of the Pagan fable of the Phoenix. Justification by faith is set forth very much in the Pauline style; as, indeed, Clement and Polycarp alone of the Apostolic Fathers do thus set it forth. The Trinitarianism of Clement is as clearly pronounced as need be, considering the circumstances of the case. In the 2d chapter of the Epistle, he speaks of the sufferings of Christ as the sufferings of "God" (rov Oɛov), who is the source of all spiritual strength and comfort. In

* The conjectural date of Jaffé in his Regesta Pontificum Romanorum. Berlin. 1851.

the 16th chapter, Christ is called "the sceptre of the majesty of God," who came not in pomp and splendor, as he might have done, but in humility. In the 22d chapter, a passage from the Psalms (Ps. 34: 11-18) is cited as the language of Christ himself, speaking through the Holy Spirit. In the 32d chapter, Christ is spoken of as descended from Abraham "ac cording to the flesh;" in evident allusion to Rom. 9: 5, where the same phrase occurs with the addition of "God blessed forever." In the 36th chapter Christ is called "the effulgence of the majesty" of God; as in Heb. 1: 3 he is called the effulgence of his "glory." The underlying idea in these representations is evidently the old Hebrew idea of the Revealer of the unrevealed Jehovah. This Revealer is Christ, superior to angels, the inspirer of the ancient Prophets, the sanctifier of believers, nay, God himself. In two at least of the passages, the idea clearly is, that the relationship between the Father and the Son is immanent, and not merely economic. As to the Holy Spirit, while a distinct personality is not posi tively affirmed, it is certainly adumbrated. There are some six passages in all, the greater part of which have reference to the Holy Spirit as the source of inspiration in the Scriptures. For example, in the 13th chapter, Clement writes, "For the Holy Spirit says," quoting Jer. 9: 23, 24; and again, in the same chapter, he writes, "For the Holy Logos says," quoting Is. 66: 2. So also in the 8th chapter, Noah and Jonah are represented as having spoken "by the Holy Spirit," while God himself (ó dεotótys twv åπtávtwv) is repre sented as speaking in Ez. 33: 11. We have thus the elements of the doctrine of the Trinity. And in two passagest something more than the elements; as in the 46th chapter, where we read: "Have we not one God (Eva Oeòv), and one Christ, and one Spirit of grace poured out upon us?" That Clement's ideas were as well matured, and as sharply defined, as those of Athanasius, we do not pretend to say, or to imagine. It is enough for our purpose that he calls Christ God, speaks of Jehovah, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit as inspiring Pro+ Chapters 42 and 46.

*See chapters 2, 8, 13, 16, 42, and 45.

phets and Apostles, and represents the Three as in some sort One.

Our next witness is Ignatius of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in Rome, according to some writers in 107, according to others in 116 A.D. ;* more probably the latter. Unfortunately, the long-drawn Ignatian controversy is not yet ended. The more prevalent opinion is, that the seven Epistles, as we have them in the shorter Greek recension, first published by Usher in 1644, are genuine. Cureton, Bunsen, and others accept only three of these Epistles (to Polycarp, to the Ephe sians, and to the Romans) in the still shorter Syriac recension. Dr. Killen, of Belfast, Ireland, in his recent History of the Ancient Church (1859), has made an elaborate and determined effort to prove the entire collection spurious. The end we now have in view requires no settlement of this vexed question. In any case, whether genuine or not, in whole or only in part, it is admitted that these Epistles all belong to the Ante-Nicene period; the three already named having been known to Origen as early at least as 223 A.D., and all of them (including the other four to the Magnesians, the Trallians, the Philadelphians, and the Smyrnaeans) known to Eusebius when he wrote his History about 325 A.D. Consequently, if there be Trinitarianism in the three Epistles of the Syriac recension, even though not Ignatian, it is as old at least as the early part of the third century; if Ignatian, as Cureton believes, it is older still by about a hundred years. While if there be more Trinitarianism in the Greek seven Epistles than in the Syriac three, it will be found that the difference between them ist only in degree and not in kind. Even in the three Syriac Epistles there are at least five passages, which indicate a decided Trinitarianism. In the Epistle to Polycarp we find it written: "Expect him who is above time (vπèρ kaιpòv), who is timeless (äxpovov), who is invisible, who for our sakes became visible, who cannot be handled, who is impassible, who for our

*These are the extreme dates, unless we allow some weight to the new "Martyrdom of Ignatius," recently edited by Dressel, which gives 102. A.D. Greswell's date is 115.

*

sakes became passible, who for us endured every thing in every form." In the inscription to the Ephesian Epistle, Jesus Christ is called "our God" (Tov Oεov nur); and in the body of the Epistle, even his blood is spoken of as "the blood of God” (ἐν αἵματι θεοῦ). In the same Epistle, the Church is described as the building of God the Father, the stones of which are raised up on high by the engine of Jesus Christ which is the Cross, the rope by which they are drawn being the Holy Ghost. In the Epistle to the Romans, prayer to Christ is enjoined: "Entreat the Lord for me (TavevoαTE TÒv Κύριον ὑπὲρ ἐμοῦ), that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God." So much for the Syriac recension. In the shorter Greek recension of the seven Epistles, there are some fourteen passages of kindred import, speaking of Christ as God, of his sufferings as the sufferings of God, of his pre-existence "with the Father before the worlds" ("pò alwvwv парà пα-рì), describing him as "God manifested humanlу" (Оεοv ¿výрwпívws pavεpoμévov), with the other like expressions, which, if not necessarily implying the absolute Divinity of Christ, Divinity in the highest sense, are certainly best explained by supposing this to have been the writer's thought. One passage, in the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Magnesians, reads as follows: "For the divinest Prophets have lived according to Jesus Christ. On this account they suffered persecution, inspired by his grace, that those who were unbe lieving might be assured that there is one God, who has manifested himself through his Son Jesus Christ, who is his Eternal Word (Aóyos aidios), not proceeding from silence,† who in all things pleased him that sent him." The subordination of the Son to the Father is, in the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Magnesians, expressly declared to be "according to the flesh." Finally, in the account of his martyrdom, which has come down to us, it is related of Ignatius, that just before entering

* In the Greek recension, the reading is λιτανεύσατε τὸν Χριστὸν.

†The σyń, not of Valentinus, which would disprove the Ignatian authorship of the passage, but of Simon Magus: See Hippolytus, Phil. 6: 18, Duncker and Schneidewin's Ed. p. 250. The "not proceeding from silence," means that Christ

is eterna'.