The evolution of early Christian theology: The monarchians (part 4 of 8)

Part 3: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-evolution-of-early-christian_0560481137.html

     In the last two posts of this series on the evolution of early Christian theology, we’ve seen how the ‘proto-orthodox’ theologians of the second and third centuries held to Logos theory. They believed that the Father alone is the true God, and that the Son is a second god who comes forth from the Father, yet is subordinate to the Father, so that there is still only one absolute God. However, Logos theory was not the only theology or Christology during this period; there were other competing views, subsumed under the label of Monarchianism, whose adherents argued forcefully that the Father is the only god, and there is no second god. In this post, we’ll look at the different types of Monarchianism in the second and third centuries AD, the arguments set forth by the Monarchians, and the counter-arguments by Logos theorists.

    Dynamic Monarchianism

The first type of Monarchianism which we’ll examine is Dynamic Monarchianism, also known as adoptionism. This is the view that Jesus was a man who was chosen by God to be the Messiah, but that he did not pre-exist his birth or have a divine nature (as either a god or God). This view was considered Monarchianism in the second and third centuries because, unlike Logos theorists, the proponents of Dynamic Monarchanism held to strict monotheism and identified the Father as strictly the only god.

    Although Logos theorists condemned this as a heresy, the fact is that this view is actually more ancient than Logos theory. Although Logos theory was innovated by Justin Martyr in the mid-second century, the first hints of adoptionism can be found already in the writings of the New Testament. In Romans 1:3-4, Paul set down a creed that may have been circulating before he wrote it down, [1] which states:

God... promised beforehand... concerning His Son, who was born from the seed of David, according to flesh, who was appointed Son of God in power, according to spirit of holiness, by resurrection from the dead, Jesus the Messiah our Lord.

Paul also states that Jesus became Lord because of his death and resurrection (Rom. 14:9). The book of Acts also records Paul as stating that the resurrection is when the Father begot Jesus (13:33). The gospels of Matthew and Luke both state that Jesus was begotten and became Son of God, not at the beginning of creation as the Logos theorists taught, but because of his miraculous conception (Matt. 1:18-20; Luke 1:32-35). The anonymous epistle to the Hebrews argues, using Old Testament references, that the Son was created inferior to the angels, in every way like his brethren, but became superior to the angels because of his resurrection (1:3-14; 2:6-9, 14-17).

    Adoptionism did not cease with the canonical writings of the New Testament. As described in the first post of this series, the Odes of Solomon were a first- or early second-century hymnal that referred to the Messiah as “the man who humbled himself, but was exalted because of his righteousness” (41.12); it describes his deification as being “named the Son of God” and being made “in the likeness of the Most High” (36.3-5). Like the Dynamic Monarchians of the later second and third centuries, the Odes described the Logos as a power or attribute of the Father, “the thought which He has thought concerning His Messiah,” rather than a pre-existent person (7.7-8; 9.3; 12.5).

    The second-century work The Shepherd of Hermas also promotes adoptionism. This book describes in a parable how Jesus, because of his righteousness, was filled with the Holy Spirit (a.k.a. “Son of God”) and thereby became co-heir with the Holy Spirit (Sim. 5). Despite this adoptionist parable, the Shepherd of Hermas was so influential that it was accepted as canon even by some later Logos theorists, including Irenaeus of Lyons (Adv. Haer. 4.20.2).

    At the time of Justin Martyr, the first Christian writer who is known to have propounded Logos theory, Dynamic Monarchianism (that is, adoptionism) was the view of most Christians. We know this because Justin himself states, “For there are some, my friend, of our race, who admit that [Jesus] is Messiah, while holding him to be a man of men; with whom I do not agree, nor would I, even though most of those who have the same opinions as myself [i.e., most Christians] may say so” (Dial. 48). However, after this, Logos theory increased in popularity and adoptionism seems to have fallen out of favor.

    Nevertheless, during the later second century, there was one known teacher of Dynamic Monarchianism, named Theodotus of Byzantium. Unlike some other adoptionists, Theodotus accepted the virgin birth, but he used several Scriptural proof-texts (e.g. Deut. 18:15; John 8:40; 1 Tim. 2:5) to argue that Jesus was only a man (Hippolytus, Haer. 7.23; Epiphanius, Pan. 54). He believed that the spirit of Messiah descended upon Jesus at his baptism because of his righteousness, and that after his resurrection he became a god, although some of his followers did not accept this (Hippolytus, Haer. 7.23). The name ‘Dynamic Monarchianism’ comes from Theodotus’ claim that Jesus’ miracles were the result of “divine power” (dynamis) which came upon him at his baptism.

    In the period immediately after Theodotus’ death, little is known about Dynamic Monarchianism, other than that it was still held by some Christians, as evidenced by the fact that Origen’s and Novatian’s writings mention this sect existing in their time (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2; Novatian, On the Trinity 30). There was another resurgence of Dynamic Monarchianism when an adoptionist named Paul was elected to be bishop of Antioch in AD 260; he was excommunicated for his beliefs in AD 268, but by popular favor remained in power until AD 272, when the ‘orthodox’ bishops petitioned the Roman emperor Aurelius to forcibly remove him from the episcopate (Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 7.27, 29-30.19).

    Arguments for and against Dynamic Monarchianism

Unfortunately, no original writings from Dynamic Monarchians of the second and third centuries have survived to the modern day. Nevertheless, we can still reconstruct some of the arguments that were made for Dynamic Monarchianism based on the ‘proto-orthodox’ polemics written against it. According to Origen and Novatian, they argued as follows:

Now there are many people who wish to be pious and are troubled [by John 1:1] because they are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into false and impious doctrines... they deny the divinity of the Son, making his individual nature and essence to be different from the Father, so that they are separable from one another. (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2)

And those who contend that Christ is man only, conclude on the other hand thus: If the Father is one, and the Son another, but the Father is God and Christ is God, then there is not one God, but two Gods are at once introduced, the Father and the Son; and if God is one, by consequence Christ must be a man, so that the Father may rightly be the one God. (Novatian, On the Trinity 30)

This argument can be summarized in logical form as follows:

P1. The Son is God. (assumption)

P2. The Father is God. (premise)

P3. The Father is not the Son. (premise)

C1. Therefore, there are two Gods, the Father and the Son. (from P1-P3)

P4. There is only one God, the Father. (premise)

C2. Therefore, there are two Gods and there is only one God, the Father. (from C1, P4)

P5. But it is impossible for something to be simultaneously true and not true. (unstated premise)

C3. Therefore, the Son is not God. (from P1-P5, by reductio ad absurdum)

Although the Dynamic Monarchians would not have formulated their argument exactly like this, it’s evident from the writings of Origen and Novatian that this is (at least in part) what motivated their belief that the Son is not God.

    How did Origen and Novatian counter this argument? As we saw in the last post, both of them agreed with all of the premises of this argument; they both believed that the Father is God, that the Father is not the Son, and that the only God is the Father. Thus, rather than argue that the Son is the same God as the Father, as trinitarians believe, they argued that the Son is a lesser god than the Father. In their view, there is only one true God, the Father, but the Son is a god in a different sense than the Father is God, so that there is still only one absolute God, the Father (Origen, ibid.; Novatian, ibid.). It’s hard to say whether this actually refutes the Dynamic Monarchian argument, or whether it adequately reconciles Logos theory with monotheism, but these two Logos theorists believed that it does.

    In the fourth century AD, the bishop Epiphanius of Salamis also records several Scripture-based arguments for Dynamic Monarchianism that were used by the second-century adoptionist Theodotus of Byzantium. Theodotus cites several passages from the Scriptures that refer to Jesus as “a man,” including Deuteronomy 18:15 [1], Isaiah 53:3 [2], John 8:40 [3], Acts 2:22 [4], and 1 Timothy 2:5 [5]; as well as 1 Corinthians 8:6 [6]. Arguing against this, Epiphanius cites John 8:56-58 to show that Jesus existed before Abraham, alongside other passages that refer to Jesus as “Son of God” to show that Jesus is fully divine [7] (Panarion 54.1.9-6.4).

    Modalistic Monarchianism

The other type of Monarchianism is Modalistic Monarchianism, also known as modalism or Sabellianism. This is the view that Jesus just is the same God as the Father, contrary to what Dynamic Monarchians and Logos theorists believed; but unlike trinitarians, modalists believe that the Father and Son are merely modes, or personalities, of the same God. As such, these modalists held to the monarchy of the Father (his unique identity as the only god) without denying that Jesus is also God.

    Unlike Dynamic Monarchianism, however, belief in modalism does not date back to the first century AD. Instead, the first writer to express some belief in modalism was Melito of Sardis, who was the bishop of Sardis until his death in AD 180. In his homily On the Passover, written in the mid-second century, Melito writes:

For He was born as a Son, and led as a lamb, and slaughtered as a sheep, and buried as a man, and rose from the dead as God, being God by His nature and a man. He is all things. He is law, in that He judges; He is word, in that He teaches; He is grace, in that He saves; He is the Father, in that He begets; He is the Son, in that He is begotten; He is sheep, in that He suffers; He is human, in that He is buried; He is God, in that He is raised up. This is Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Peri Pascha 8-10)

Although he was probably not the first modalist, Melito’s writings are the earliest surviving work that teaches Modalistic Monarchianism.

    After Melito, the next known teacher of modalism was Praxeas, around the turn of the third century, who was vehemently opposed by Tertullian in his polemic Against Praxeas. Regarding Praxeas’ beliefs, Tertullian writes:

He says that the Father Himself came down into the virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ... In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. (Against Praxeas 1; 2)

This view is called Modalistic Monarchianism because, according to Tertullian, Praxeas’ followers claimed, “We maintain the monarchy of God” (Against Praxeas 3).

    Sabellius, a priest who preached in Rome until he was excommunicated in AD 220, developed this view further. According to Hippolytus:

He, and the Sabellians who derive from him, hold that the Father is the same, the Son is the same, and the Holy Spirit is the same, so that there are three names in one entity. Or, as there are a body, a soul and a spirit in a man, so the Father, in a way, is the body; the Son, in a way, is the soul; and as a man’s spirit is in man, so is the Holy Spirit in the Godhead. Or it is as in the sun, which consists of one entity but has three operations, I mean the illuminating, the warming, and the actual shape of the orb. The warming, or hot and seething operation is the Spirit; the illuminating operation is the Son; and the Father is the actual form of the whole entity. (Panarion 62.1.4-7).

Another modalist from about the same time as Sabellius was Noetus, a presbyter in Asia Minor. His later contemporary, Hippolytus of Rome, wrote a polemic titled Against Noetus which states,

He alleged that Christ was the Father Himself, and that the Father was born, and suffered, and died... they say without shame that the Father is Himself Christ, Himself the Son, Himself was born, Himself suffered, Himself raised Himself. (Against Noetus 1; 3)

Noetus was excommunicated for his beliefs by a council of other presbyters, but his followers continued to preach modalism (Against Noetus 1). This doctrine was apparently still around by the mid-third century, because Novatian describes and argues against this view in his work On the Trinity (26-28).

    Arguments for and against Modalistic Monarchianism

Unfortunately, no writings from the second and third centuries AD arguing for Modalistic Monarchianism have survived to the modern day, so as with Dynamic Monarchianism, we simply have to trust that the modalists’ opponents have accurately recorded their arguments. Origen and Novatian both describe a logical argument that was put forth by the modalists:

Now there are many people who wish to be pious and are troubled [by John 1:1] because they are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into false and impious doctrines... they deny that the Son has an individual nature distinct from the Father, by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name only. (Origen, Comm. on John 2.2)

By this very fact they wish to show that Christ is God, the Father, in that he is asserted to be not man only, but also is declared to be a god. For thus they say, “If it is asserted that God is one, and Christ is God, then,” they say, “if the Father and Christ are one God, Christ will be called the Father.” (Novatian, On the Trinity 26)

And those who say that Jesus Christ is the Father argue as follows: If God is one, and Christ is God, then Christ is the Father, since God is one. (Novatian, On the Trinity 30)

This argument can be summarized in logical form as follows:

P1. There is only one God. (premise)

P2. The Father is God. (unstated premise)

P3. Christ is God. (premise)

C1. Therefore, the Father and Christ are one God. (from P1-P3)

P4. If two things are the same God, then they are numerically identical. (unstated premise)

C2. Therefore, Christ just is the Father. (from C1, P4)

The modalists would not have formulated their argument exactly like this, but their commitment to strict monotheism was certainly part of what motivated their belief, unlike the Logos theorists who believed that there were two or three gods (but only one God).

    Modalistic Monarchians also employed several Scriptural arguments to support their beliefs. According to Novatian, they claimed that John 10:30 (“I and the Father are one”) proves that Christ is the Father (On the Trinity 27). The Logos theorists, pointing to the fact that there is a plural verb (“we are”) and that “one” is neuter, argued that this shows that Christ and the Father are one in will and ‘agree as one,’ not that they are one person [8] (Origen, Contra Celsum 8.12; Novatian, On the Trinity 27; Hippolytus, Against Noetus 7). The modalists also argued that John 14:9 (“he who has seen me has seen the Father”) was supportive of their beliefs, but Novatian argued that this only shows Christ to be “the image of God,” not that he is God Himself, the Father (On the Trinity 28).

    Other passages that were employed by the Sabellians, according to Hippolytus, were Exodus 20:3, Isaiah 44:6, 45:14, and Baruch 3:35-36, to show that there is only one God; as well as Romans 9:5, to show that Christ is called God (Against Noetus 2). In response, Hippolytus admits that the Father is the only God, and that Christ is called “God” (Against Noetus 3-6). However, he responds, Christ is called “God” because “he who is over all is a god;” but Christ is only over all because it has been given to him by the Father, and furthermore (citing John 20:17) the Father is still the God of Christ (Against Noetus 6). Again, it’s hard to say whether this counter-argument actually refutes the argument made by the Modalistic Monarchians so as to reconcile Logos theory with monotheism, but Hippolytus believed that it does.

    Conclusion

Two-stage and one-stage Logos theories were not the only theological contenders in Christianity during the second and third centuries AD. There were also two factions of Monarchians, which, based on what we can discern from the writings of Logos theorists, appear to have had quite a few adherents during this period. Dynamic and Modalistic Monarchianism agreed on two points: the monarchy (sole deity) of the Father, and that the Logos was not a pre-existent person, but a power or idea in the mind of God; but they also held diametrically opposing viewpoints about Jesus, whom they believed to be only a man (Dynamic Monarchianism) or God Himself, the Father (Modalistic Monarchianism).

    Unfortunately, we have very few writings from the Monarchians because of preservation bias in the later Church, which saw Monarchianism as heretical, but we can still reconstruct their beliefs and arguments from the writings of their opponents. These polemics against Monarchianism show us that it was not a fringe belief, but a real opposition to Logos theory which had many adherents, including bishops (such as Paul of Samosata) and presbyters (such as Noetus).

    In the next post, we’ll look at how these different sects of the second and third centuries AD developed in the pre-Nicene period, setting the scene for the controversy which led to the Council of Nicaea.

Part 5: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-evolution-of-early-christian.html

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[1] “Theodotus says, ‘The Law also said of him, “The Lord will raise up unto you a prophet of your brethren, like me; hearken to him.” But Moses was a man. Therefore the Messiah whom God raised up was this person but, since he was one of them, was a man just as Moses was a man.’” (Panarion 54.3.1)

[2] “Then Theodotus says in turn, ‘Isaiah also called him a man, for he said, “A man acquainted with the bearing of infirmity; and we knew him afflicted with blows and abuse, and he was despised and not esteemed.”’” (Panarion 54.5.1)

[3] “He said, ‘Christ said, “But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth.” You see,’ he said, “that Christ is a man.’” (Panarion 54.1.9)

[4] “Theodotus, however, says, ‘The holy apostles called him “a man approved among you by signs and wonders;” and they did not say, “a god approved.”’” (Panarion 54.5.9)

[5] “His next allegation is that ‘The apostle called him the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.’” (Panarion 54.6.1)

[6] “And in confirmation of these statements he says, ‘If there exist many so-called gods and many so-called lords, yet to us there is one God, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom are all things and we for him.’” (Panarion 54.6.3)

[7] Apparently, Epiphanius was unaware that he was incorrectly reading fourth-century creedal definitions of “Son of God” back into first- and second-century texts, in which context “Son of God” simply referred to a righteous man or king of Israel (cf. 2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 28:5-6; Psa. 2:6-7; 82:6; 89:6, 20, 26-27; Wisdom 2.13-18; Sirach 4.10; 51.10; Philo, Conf. 145-147; Luke 1:32-33; John 1:49).

[8] This is markedly different than the argument from John 10:30 employed by trinitarians later on, who argued instead that this shows that Christ and the Father are “one essence.”