HERESIES IN SPAIN.
Such mixtures of religions are by no means without example in history. The Sabians, for instance, were the followers of a religion, which may have been a cross between Judaism, Christianity, and Magianism.[1] But Mohammedanism itself has furnished the most marked instances of such amalgamation. In Persia Islam combined with the creed of Zoroaster to produce Babyism; while in India Hinduism and Mohammedanism, fused together by the genius of Nanak Guru, have resulted in Sikhism.
It may be said that Mohammedanism has been able to unite with Zoroastrianism and Hinduism owing to their very dissimilarity with itself, whereas Christianity is too near akin to Islam to combine with it in such a way as to produce a religion like both, and yet different from either.[2] Christianity and Mohammedanism, each have two cardinal doctrines (and two only) which cannot be abrogated if they are to remain distinctive creeds. In one of these, the unity of God, they agree. In the other they do, and always must, differ. The divinity of Christ on the one side, and the divine mission of Mohammed on the other, are totally incompatible doctrines. If the one is true, the other cannot be so. Surrender both, and the result is Judaism. No compromise would seem possible. Yet a compromise was attempted, if we can credit a statement attributed by Dozy to Ibn Khaldun,[3] in recounting the history of the successful rebel, Abdurrahman ibn Merwan ibn Yunas, who during the last quarter of the ninth century, while all Moslem Spain was a prey to the wildest anarchy, became a leader of the renegade or Muwallad party in Merida and the neighbourhood. Thinking to unite the Muwallads and Christians in one revolt, he preached to his countrymen a new religion, which held a place halfway between Christianity and Islam. This is all we are told of an endeavour, which might have led to the most important consequences. That we hear no more of it is evidence enough that the attempt proved abortive. The only other attempt, if it can be called so, to combine Islam and Christianity has resulted in that curious compound called the religion of the Druses.
[1] For an attempted compromise between Christianity and Brahmanism, see the proceedings of Beschi, a Roman Catholic priest, "Education and Missions," p. 14.
[2] Cp., however, the Druse religion.
[3] Dozy, ii. 184. Dozy adds that Abdurrahman was called the Galician (el Jaliki) in consequence of this attempt of his: but there is some error here, as Ibn Hayyan (see Al Makkari, ii. 439, and De Gayangos' note) says he was called ibn ul'jaliki, i.e., of the stock of the Galicians.
But though no religion, holding a position midway between Islam and Christianity, arose in Spain, yet those religions could hardly fail to undergo considerable modifications in themselves by reason of their close contact for several centuries.
In respect to Christianity we shall naturally find the traces (if any) of such modification in the so-called heresies which may have arisen in Spain during this period. These will require a somewhat strict examination to be made to yield up their secret.
The Church of Spain seems to have gained a reputation for introducing innovations[1] into the doctrines and practices of the true faith, and even of priding itself on its ingenuity in this way. The very first Council whose acts have come down to us, held at Elvira in Spain, early in the fourth century, contains a canon censuring the use of pictures. The very first heretics, who were punished for their error with death by the hands of their fellow-Christians, were reared in the bosom of the Spanish Church. The doctrine, novel then, but accepted now by all the Western Churches, of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well as from the Father, was first formulated in a Spanish Council at the end of the sixth century, but not universally received in the West until 600 years later.[2] And as we have seen, the use of pictures was denounced long before the times of the Iconoclasts.
We will now take in order the several heresies that made themselves noticeable in Spain, or Gothic Gaul, during the Arab supremacy, and see if we can trace any relation between them and the Moslem faith.
To take an unimportant one first, a heresy is mentioned as having arisen in Septimania (Gothic Gaul), presumably during the eighth century.[3] It was more practical than speculative, and consisted in a denial of the need of confession to a priest, on the (unimpeachable) ground that men ought to confess to God alone. This appears to us Protestants a wholly laudable and reasonable contention; but not so to the worthy abbé who records it: cette doctrine, si favorable à libertinage, trouva un grand nombre de partisans, et excite encore le zèle d'Alcuin.[4]
[1] Alcuin ad Elipandum, iv. 13—"Audi me, obsecro, patienter, scholastica Hispaniae congregatio, tibi loquentem, quae novi semper aliquid audire vel praedicare desideras, non contenta ecclesiae universalis Catholica fide, nisi tu aliquid per te invenies, unde tuum nomen celebrares in mundo."
[2] Lateran Council, 1215.
[3] See, however, Alcuin's letter to the clergy of the province, Ep., 71. Migne, vol. ci. p. 1594.
[4] Rohrbacher, "Hist. Univ. dé l'Eglise Cathol.," ix. 309.
That this error was due in any sense to the influence of the Arabs in the neighbouring territories of Spain, it is of course impossible to affirm, but at all events the reform was quite in the spirit of the verses of the Koran: "O ye who have received[1] the Scripture come to a just determination between us and you, that we worship not any except God, and associate no creature with Him: and that the one of us take not the other for lords, beside God." And "They take their priests and monks for their lords besides God."[2]
[1] Chap. iii. p. 39. See Sale's note: "that is, come to such terms of agreement as are indisputably consonant to the doctrine of all the prophets and Scriptures, and therefore cannot reasonably be rejected."
[2] Chap. ix. Mohammed charged the Jews and Christians with idolatry both on other grounds and because "they paid too implicit an obedience to their priests and monks, who took upon them to pronounce what things were lawful and what unlawful, and to dispense with the laws of God." See Sale, Ibid. Cp.—
Haughty of heart and brow the warrior came,
In look and language proud as proud might be,
Vaunting his lordship, lineage, fights, and fame,
Yet was that barefoot monk more proud than he.
And as the ivy climbs the tallest tree,
So round the loftiest soul his toils he wound;
And with his spells subdued the fierce and free.
Till ermined age and youth in arms renowned
Honouring his scourge and hair-cloth meekly kissed the ground.
And thus it chanced that valour, peerless knight,
Who ne'er to king or kaiser veiled his crest,
Victorious still in bull-feast or in fight,
Since first with mail his limbs he did invest,
Stooped ever to that anchoret's behest;
Nor reasoned of the right, nor of the wrong,
But at his bidding laid the lance in rest,
And wrought fell deeds the troubled world along,
For he was fierce as brave, and pitiless as strong.
—SCOTT'S "Don Roderick," xxix. xxx.
Let us next consider an heretical view of the Trinity attributed to Migetius (circa 750). According to the rather obscure account, which has come down to us,[1] he seems to have regarded the Three Persons of the Trinity, at least in their relations with the world, as corporeal, the Father being personified in David, the Son in Jesus, and the Holy Ghost in Paul. It is difficult to believe that the doctrine, thus crudely stated by Elipandus, was really held by anyone. We may perhaps infer[2] that Migetius revived the error of Priscillian (itself a form of Sabellianism), and reducing the Three Persons of the Trinity to one, acknowledged certain ένεργειαι or powers, emanating from Him, which were manifested in David, Jesus, Paul respectively. As the first and last of these three recipients of the Divine powers were confessedly men, it follows that Migetius was ready to strip Jesus of that Divinity, which is the cardinal doctrine of Christianity, and which more than any other doctrine distinguishes it from the creed of Mohammed. Accordingly he appears to have actually denied the divinity of the Word,[3] and in this he made an approach to Mohammedanism.[4]
[1] Elipandus to Migetius, sec. 3. See Migne, vol. 96, p. 859.
[2] With Enhueber. Dissert, apud Migne, ci., p. 338 ff., sec. 29.
[3] Enhueber, sec. 32.
[4] Neander, v. 216, n., says, Migetius held that the Λογος became personal with the assumption of Christ's humanity; that the Λογος was the power constituting the personality of Christ. Hence, says Neander, he was accused of asserting that Christ, the son of David according to the flesh, and not Christ, the Son of God, was the Second Person of the Trinity.
A similar, but seemingly not identical, error was propagated by those who, as we learn from a letter of Alvar to Speraindeo, did not believe the Three in One and One in Three, "denying the utterances of the prophets, rejecting the doctrine of learned men, and, while they claimed to take their stand upon the Gospel, pointing to texts like John xx. 17, 'I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, unto my God and your God,' to prove that Christ was merely man."[1] In his answer to Alvar's letter, Speraindeo says, "If we speak of the Trinity as one Person, we Judaize;" he might have added, "and Mohammedanize." These heretics, according to the abbot, spoke of three powers (virtutes) forming one Person, not, as the orthodox held, three Persons forming one God.[2] Here we see a close resemblance to the error mentioned in the preceding paragraph; but the heretics we are now dealing with make an even closer approach to the teaching of Mohammed in their quotation of John xx. 17 given above, as will be seen, if we compare with that text the following passages of the Koran, put into the mouth of Christ: "Verily, God is my Lord, and your Lord; therefore serve him:"[3] "They are surely infidels who say, verily, God is Christ, the Son of Mary, since Christ said, O children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord:"[4] and, "I have not spoken unto them any other than what thou didst command me—namely, worship God, my Lord and your Lord."[5]
[1] Alvar's letter. Florez, xi. 147. Another text quoted in defence of this doctrine of Agnoetism was Matt. xxiv. 36: "Of that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." In answer to this, Speraindeo refers to Gen. iii. 9, where God the Father seems not to know where Adam is.
[2] Speraindeo's illustration of the Trinity cannot be called a happy one. He likens it to a king, whose power is one, but made up of the man himself, his diadem, and his purple.
[3] Koran, c. iii. v. 46.
[4] Kor., c. v. 77.
[5] Kor., c. v. 118.
We come next to the famous Adoptionist heresy, the most remarkable and original of those innovations to which Alcuin taunts the Spanish Church with being addicted. Unfortunately we derive little of our knowledge of the new doctrine from the originators and supporters of it—our information on the subject coming chiefly from passages quoted by their opponents (notably our own Alcuin) in controversial works. But that the heresy had an important connection with the Mohammedan religion has been the opinion of many eminent writers on Church history. Mariana, the Spanish historian, and Baronius, the apologist for the Roman Church, held that the object of the new heresiarchs was, "by lowering the character of Christ, to pave the way for a union between Christians and Mohammedans."[1] Enhueber,[2] also, in his treatise on this subject, quotes a tract, "De Primatu Ecclesiae Toletanae," which attributes the heresy to its author, Elipandus, being brought into so close a contact with the Saracens, and living on such friendly terms with them.[3]
Neander[4] thinks that there are some grounds for supposing that Felix, one of the authors of the heresy, had been employed in defending Christianity against objections brought against it from the Moslem standpoint,[5] and in proving the divinity of Christ, so that they might be induced to accept it. Felix, therefore, may have been led to embrace this particular doctrine, called Adoptionism, from a wish to bring the Christian view of Christ nearer to the Mohammedan opinion.
There is considerable doubt as to who first broached the new theory, the evidence being of a conflicting character, and pointing now to Elipandus, bishop of Toledo and primate of all Spain, now to Felix, bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia.[6]
[1] Mariana, vii. 8. Baronius, "Ann. Eccl." xiii. p. 260. See Blunt, "Dictionary of Religions," etc., article on Adoptionism; and Migne, vol. xcvi. p. 847—"deceptus uterque contagione forsan insidentiurn cervicibus aut e proximo blasphemantium Mohametanorum commercio."
[2] Enhueber, sec. 26. Mansi, "Coll. Concil," x. 513, sec. 4.
[3] "Usus enim frequenti Maurorum commercio."—Ibid,
[4] V. 219.
[5] This perhaps refers to a "disputatio cum sacerdote" which the Emperor Charles the Great had heard of as written by Felix. Alcuin (see "Ep.," 85) knows nothing of it. In his letter to Charles, Alcuin, speaking of a letter from Felix, says: "Inveni peiores errores, quam ante in eius scriptis legerem."
[6] The prevailing opinion seems to be that the new doctrine arose out of Elipandus' controversy with Migetius.
The claims of Felix[1] are supported by Eginhard,[2] Saxo, and Jonas of Orleans; while Paulinus of Aquileia, in his book entitled "Sacrosyllabus," expressly calls Elipandus the author of the baneful heresy; and Alcuin, in his letter to Leidrad,[3] says that he is convinced that Elipandus, as he was the first in rank, so also was the chief offender.
The evidence being inconclusive, we are driven to follow à priori considerations, and these point to Elipandus as the author. According to Neander,[4] he was a violent, excitable, bigoted man; and he certainly uses some very strong language in his writings against his opponents, and stands a good deal on his dignity as head of the Spanish Church. For instance, speaking of his accusers, Etherius, Bishop of Osma, and Beatus,[5] a priest of Libana, he says of the former that he wallows in the mire of all lasciviousness;[6] that he is totally unfit to officiate at God's altar;[7] that he is a false prophet[8] and a heretic; and, forgetting the courtesies of controversy, he doesn't hesitate, in another place, to call him an ass. Beatus also he accuses of gross sensuality, and calls him that iniquitous priest of Astorga,[9] accusing him of heresy, and giving him the title Antiphrasius, which means that instead of being called Beatus, he should have been named the very opposite.[10]
[1] See "Froben Dissertation," Migne, vol. ci. p. 305.
[2] "Annals," 792.
[3] Alcuin, "Epist. ad Leidradum," says that the heresy arose in Cordova, and he appeals to Elipandus' letter to Felix after the latter's recantation.
[4] Neander (v. p. 217) seems to infer these qualities from his writings. An author, quoted by Enhueber (Tract, de Primata Eccl. Tolet), describes him as "parum accurate in sacris litteris versatus."
[5] Died in 798. Fleury v., p. 236.
[6] Elipand. Epist., iv. 2, "Carnis immunditia fetidus."
[7] "Ab altario Dei extraneus." Neander, v., p. 226, takes this to mean that he was deposed.
[8] He gave the Revelation of St John a Moslem application: and prophesied the end of the world in the near future. See letter of Beatus, book i., sec. 23—"Novissima hora est ... nunc Antichristi multi facti sunt. Omnis spiritus qui solvit Jesum est illius Antichristi, quem audistis quoniam venit, et nunc in mundo est." See also Alcuin's letter to the Spanish bishops.
[9] "Elipandus and bishops of Spain to those of Gaul," sec. 1.
[10] This practice of punning on names is very common in these writers. "Infelix Felix" is a poor witticism which constantly occurs. So Samson says of Hostegesis that he ought to be called "hostis Jesu"; and in the account of the Translation of the bodies of Aurelius, etc., we find Leovigild spoken of as a very "Leo vigilans."
But in spite of outbreaks like these we must beware of judging the venerable Elipandus too hardly. Alcuin himself, in his letter to the bishop, written, as he says, "with the pen of charity," speaks of him as most blameless,[1] and confesses that he has heard much of his piety and devotion, an admission which he also makes with regard to Felix, in a letter to him.[2] Yet in his book against Elipandus, he exclaims, not without a touch of bathos: "For all the garments of wool on your shoulders, and the mitre upon your brow, wearing which you minister to the people, for all the daily shaving of your beard[3] ... if you renounce not these doctrines, you will be numbered with the goats!" Another testimony (of doubtful value, however) in Elipandus' favour is to be found in the anonymous life of Beatus,[4] where Elipandus is said to have succeeded Cixila in the bishopric of Toledo, because of his reputation for learning and piety, which extended throughout Spain.
[1] "Sanctissime praesul," sec. 1. Cp. sec. 6, "Audiens famam bonam religiosae vitae de vobis."
[2] "Celeberriman tuae sanctitatis audiens famam." The "Pseudo Luitprand" calls him "Vir humilis, prudens, ae in zelo fidei Catholicae fervens."
[3] Beards were the sign of laymen, see Alvar, "Ep.," xiii., and probably the distinction was much insisted on because of the Moslem custom of wearing long beards. For the distinctive dress of the clergy see the same letter of Alvar, ... "Quern staminia et lana oviuin religiosum adprobat."
[4] See Migne, xcvi., 890 ff.
Elipandus, who boasted of having refuted and stamped out the Migetian errors, and who also took up so independent an attitude with regard to the See of Rome, was not the man to endure being dictated to in the matter of what was, or what was not, sound doctrine, and, in the letter quoted above, he scornfully remarks that he had never heard that it was the province of the people of Libana to teach the Toledans. Here, as in the defiant attitude taken up towards the Pope, we may perhaps see a jealousy, felt by the old independent Church of Spain under its own primate, towards the new Church, that was growing up in the mountains of the North, the centre of whose religious devotion was soon to be Compostella, and its spiritual head not the primate of Spain, but the bishop of Rome.
It is now time to explain what the actual heresy advocated by Elipandus and Felix was. Some have held the opinion that Adoptionism was merely a revival of the Bonosian errors, which had long taken root in Spain;[1] others, that it was a revival of the Nestorian[2] heresy, a new phase of the controversy between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria;[3] or that it was an attempt to reform Christianity, purging it from later additions.[4] Alcuin, however, speaks of its followers as a new sect, unknown to former times.[5] Stated briefly, the new doctrine was that Jesus, in so far as His manhood was concerned, was son of God by adoption. This error had been foreseen and condemned in advance by Cyril of Alexandria (348-386):[6] by Hilary of Arles (429-449).[7] The Eleventh Council of Toledo had also guarded against this same error a hundred years before this (675), affirming that Christ the Son of God was His Son by nature, not by adoption.
[1] Enhueber, Diss., sec. 25. The errors of Bonosus were condemned at Capua in 389. For their development in Spain, see "Isidore of Seville."
[2] Condemned at Ephesus, 431. For connection of Adoptionism with this, see letter of Adrian to bishops of Spain (785?).
[3] Neander, v., p. 216.
[4] Ibid., vi., p. 120, see letter of Alvar to Speraindeo.
[5] Alcuin contra Felicem, i., sec. 7. Elipandus denied that it had anything to do with other heresies. "Nos vero anathematizamus Bonosum, qui filium Dei sine matre genitum, adoptivum fuisse adfirmat. Item Sabellium, qui ipsum esse Patrem, quem Filium, quem et Spiritus sanctus (sic) et non ipsud, delirat. Anathematizamus Arium, qui Filium et Spiritum Sanctum creaturas esse existimat. Anathematizamus Manichaeum qui Christum solum Deum et non hominem fuisse praedicat. Anathematizamus Antiphrasium Beatum carnis lasciviae deditum, et onagrum Etherium, doctorem bestialem
...," etc.
[6] "Lectures on the Catechism," xi. "Christ is the Son of God by nature, begotten of the Father, not by adoption."
[7] De Trinit, v., p. 7, "The Son of God is not a false God—a God by adoption, or a God by metaphor (nee adoptivus, nec connuncupatus)."
It is a mistake to suppose Adoptionism to be a mere resuscitation of Nestorianism.[1] It agreed with the latter in repudiating the term "Mother of God" as applied to the Virgin Mary,[2] but it differed from it in the essential point of acknowledging the unity of person in Christ. What Felix—and on him devolved the chief onus of defence in the controversy—wished to make clear, was that the predicates of Christ's two natures could not logically be interchanged.[3] He therefore reasoned thus: Christ in respect to His Deity is God, and Son of God; with respect to His Manhood He is also God and Son of God, not indeed in essence, but by being taken into union with Him, who is in essence God, and Son of God. Therefore Christ, unless He derived His humanity from the essence of God, must as man, and in respect of that humanity, be Son of God only in a nuncupative sense. This relation of Jesus the Man to God he preferred to describe by the term Adoption—a word not found in Scripture in this connection, "but," says Felix, "implied therein,[4] for what is adoption in a son, if it be not election, assumption (susceptio)." The term itself was no doubt found by Elipandus in the Gothic Liturgy;[5] and he most likely used it at first with no thought of raising a metaphysical discussion on so knotty a point. Being brought to task, however, for using the word by those whom he deemed his ecclesiastical inferiors, he was led to defend it from a natural dislike to acknowledge himself in the wrong. "We can easily believe," says Enhueber, "that Elipandus, who appears to have been the chief author of the heresy at this time, fell into it at first from ignorance and inadvertently, and did not appear openly as a heretic, till, admonished of his error, he arrogantly and obstinately defended a position which he had only taken up through ignorance."[6]
Elipandus also seems to have applied to Felix[7] for his opinion on Christ's Sonship; and the latter, who was a man of great penetration and acuteness, first formulated the new doctrine, stating in his answer that Christ must be considered with regard to His Divinity as truly God and Son of God, but with regard to His Manhood, as Son of God in name only, and by adoption.
[1] See Blunt, "Dict. of Relig.," article on Adoptionism.
[2] Neander, v. 223. Blunt (1.1.) says just the contrary.
[3] Neander, v. 220.
[4] Alcuin contra Felicem, iii. c. 8.
[5] "Elipand. ad Albinum," sec, 11. Adoptio assumptio (άνάληψις) occurs (a) in the Missa de coena Domini: adoptivi hominis passio; (b) in the prayer de tertia feria Pascha: adoptionis gratia; (c) in that de Ascensione: adoptionem carnis. The Council of Frankfurt (794) branded the authors of the liturgy as heretics (so also did Alcuin) and as the main cause of the Saracen conquest! See Fleury, v. 243.
[6] Enhueber, "Dissertatio," sec. 26. Neander, v. 217, has the same remark in other words.
[7] See Blunt, Art. on Adoptionism.
To give an idea of the lines on which the controversy was carried on, it will be necessary to state some of the arguments of Felix, and in certain cases Alcuin's rejoinders. These are:—
(a.) "If Christ, as man, is not the adopted Son of God, then must His Manhood be derived from the essence of God and consequently must be something different from the manhood of men."[1] To this Alcuin can only oppose another dilemma, which, however, is more of the nature of a quibble. "If," he says, "Christ is an adopted Son of God, and Christ is also God, then is God the adopted Son of God?"[2] Here Alcuin confounds the predicates of Christ's two natures—the very thing Felix protested against—and uses the argument thus obtained against that doctrine of Felix, which was based on this very denial of any interchange of predicates.
(b.) Christ is spoken of sometimes as Son of David, sometimes as Son of God. One person can only have two fathers, if one of these be an adoptive father. So is it with Christ. Alcuin answers: "As a man (body and soul) is called the son of his father, so Christ (God and man) is called Son of God."[3] But to those who deny that a man's soul is derived from his father, this argument would carry no weight.
(c.) Christ stood in a position of natural dependence towards God over and above the voluntary submission which He owed to His Father as God.[4] This dependence Felix expresses by the term servus conditionalis, applied to Jesus.[5] He may have been thinking of Matt. xii. i8, "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen;" and St Paul's Ep. to Philipp. ii. 7, "He took upon. Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."[6] Or perhaps he had in his mind, if the theory of the influence of Mohammedanism is true, those passages of the Koran which speak of Christ as a servant, as, "Christ doth not proudly disdain to be a servant unto God,"[7] and, "Jesus is no other than a servant."[8]
(d.) To prove that Scripture recognises a distinction between Christ the Man and Christ the God, Felix appeals to Luke xviii. 19, "Why callest thou Me good? There is none good, save one, even God;" Mark xiii. 32, "Of that day, or that hour, knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Texts such as these can only be met by a reference to other texts, such as John iii. 16, where God is said to have given His only begotten Son to suffer death upon the Cross.
[1] Alcuin contra Felicem, ii. sec. 12.
[2] Alcuin (ibid., i. sec. 13) also answers: "If Christ be the adopted Son of God, because as man, he could not be of God's substance: then must he also be Mary's adopted son in respect to his Deity. But then Mary cannot be the mother of God." But this Alcuin thinks an impious conclusion. Cp. also Contra Felic., vii. sec. 2.
[3] Contra Felic, iii. sec. 2.
[4] Cp. 1 Corinth, xi. 3, "The Head of Christ is God." This position of dependence was due, says Felix, "ad ignobilitatem beatae Virginis, quae se ancillam Dei humili voce protestatur."
[5] Cp. Elipandus' "Confession of Faith": "... per istum Dei simul et hominis Filium, adoptivum humanitate et nequaquam adoptivum Divinitate ... qui est Deus inter Deos (John x. 35) ... quia, si conformes sunt omnes sancti huic Filio Dei secundum gratiam, profecto et cum adoptione (sunt) adoptivi, et cum advocato advocati, et cum Christo Christi, et cum servo servi."
[6] Cf. Acts iii. 13.
[7] Koran, iv. v. 170.
[8] Koran, xliii. v. 59.
Conceiving, then, that it was logically necessary to speak of Christ the Man as Son of God by adoption, Felix yet admits that this adoption, though the same in kind[1] as that which enables us to cry Abba, Father, yet was more excellent in degree, and even perhaps specifically higher. It differed also from man's adoption in not being entered into at baptism, since Christ's baptism was only the point at which His adoption was outwardly made manifest by signs of miraculous power, which continued till the resurrection. Christ's adoption—according to Felix, was assumed at His conception, "His humanity developing in accordance with its own laws, but in union with the Logos."[2] It will be seen that though Felix wished to keep clear the distinction between Christ as God, and as Man, yet he did not carry this separation so far as to acknowledge two persons in Christ. "The Adoptionists acknowledged the unity of Persons, but meant by this a juxtaposition of two distinct personal beings in such a way that the Son of God should be recognised as the vehicle for all predicates, but not in so close a manner as to amount to an absorption of the human personality into the Divine Person."[3] The two natures of Christ had been asserted by the Church against the Monophysites, and the two wills against the Monothelites, but the Church never went on to admit the two Persons.[4] With regard to the contention of Felix, we are consequently driven to the conclusion that either the personality ascribed to Christ was "a mere abstraction, a metaphysical link joining two essentially incompatible natures,"[5] or that the dispute was only about names, and that by adopted son Felix and the others meant nothing really different from the orthodox doctrine.[6]
[1] See John x. 35. Cp. Neander, v. p. 222.
[2] Neander (l.l.) Blunt, Art. on Adopt., puts this differently: "There were (according to Felix) two births in our Lord's life—(a) the assumption of man at the conception; (b) the adoption of that man at baptism. Cp. Contra Felic., iii. 16: "Qui est Secundus Adam, accepit has geminas generationes; primam quae secundum carnem est, secundum vero spiritatem, quae per adoptionem fit, idem redemptor noster secundum hominem complexus, in semet ipso continet, primam videlicet, quam suscepit ex virgine nascendo, secundam vero quam initiavit in lavacro [ ] a mortuis resurgendo."
[3] Blunt, article on Adopt.
[4] Cp. Paschasius: "In Christo gemina substantia, non gemina persona est, quia persona personam consumere potest, substantia vero substantiam non potest, siquidem persona res iuris est, substantia res naturae."
[5] Blunt, ibid. Cp. also Alcuin contra Felic., iv. 5, where he says that Felix, although he shrank from asserting the dual personality of Christ, yet insisted on points which involved it.
[6] So Walchius.
The first mention of the new theory appears in a letter of Elipandus to the Abbot Fidelis, written in 783,[1] but it did not attract notice till a little later. The pope Adrian, in his letter to the orthodox bishops of Spain (785), speaks of the melancholy news of the heresy having reached him—a heresy, he remarks, never before propounded, unless by Nestorius. Together with Elipandus, he mentions Ascarius,[2] Bishop of Braga, whom Elipandus had won over to his views. The new doctrine seems to have made its way quickly over a great part of Spain,[3] while Felix propagated it with considerable success in Septimania. The champions of the orthodox party in Spain were Beatus and Etherius, whom we have mentioned above, and Theudula, Bishop of Seville; while beyond its borders Alcuin, Paulinus of Aquileia, and Agobard of Lyons, under the direction of Charles the Great and the Pope, defended the orthodox position.
[1] See Migne, 96 p. 848.
[2] Fleury, v. 236, mentions a letter of his to Elipandus, asking the latter's opinion on some doubtful points in the new doctrine.
[3] Jonas of Orleans, in his work against Claudius, says: "Hac virulenta doctrina uterque Hispaniam magna ex parte infecit."
Felix, being bishop in a province of which Charles claimed the overlordship, was amenable to his ecclesiastical superiors, and suffered for his opinions at their hands; but Elipandus, living under a Mohammedan government, could only be reached by letters or messages. He seems even to have received something more than a mere negative support from the Arabs, if we are right in so interpreting a passage in the letter of Beatus and Etherius.[1] But it is hard to believe that Elipandus was on such friendly terms with the Arab authorities; indeed, from passages in his writings, we should infer that the opposite was rather the case.[2] Neander suggests that it may have been a Gothic king in Galicia who supported Elipandus, but this seems even more unlikely than the other supposition.
The first council called to consider this question was held by the suggestion of the Emperor and the Pope at Narbonne in 788, when the heresy was condemned by twenty-five bishops of Gaul.[3]
A similar provincial council was held by Paulinus at Friuli in 791, with the same results.[4] But in the following year the heresy was formally condemned at a full council held at Ratisbon, under the presidency of the Emperor. Here Felix abjured his error, and was sent to Rome to be further condemned by the Pope, that the whole Western Church might take action in the matter. Felix was there induced to write a book condemning his own errors, but in spite of this he was not restored to his see.[5] On his return, however, to Spain, Felix relapsed into his old heresy, which he had never really abjured.[6]
[1] I. sec. 13. "Et episcopus metropolitanus et princeps terrae pari certamine schismata haereticorum, unus verbi gladio, alter virga regiminis ulciscens, de terra vestra funditus auferantur." See on this passage Neander, v. 227, and cp. sec. 65, "haereticus tamen scripturarum non facit rationem, sed cum potentibus saeculi ecclesiam vincere quaerit."
[2] Elip. ad. Albinum, sec. 7—"Oppressione gentis afflicti non possumus tibi rescribere cuncta;" also, Ad Felic. "quotidiana dispendia quibus duramus potius quam vivimus."
[3] There are some doubts about this council.
[4] Fleury, v. 236. Hefele dates it 796.
[5] See letter of Spanish bishops to Charles, asking for Felix's restoration (794).
[6] Leo III. said of him, at a council held in Rome (799): "Fugiens ad paganos consentaneos perjuratus effectus est." See Froben, "Dissert," sec. 24; apud Migne, ci, pp. 305-336.
In 792 Alcuin was summoned from England to come and defend the orthodox position. He wrote at once to Felix a kindly letter, admonishing him of his errors, and acknowledging that all his previous utterances on theology had been sound and true. Felix answered this letter, but his reply is not preserved. To the same, or following, year belongs the letter of Elipandus and the bishops of Spain to Charles and the bishops of Gaul, defending their doctrine, and asking for the restoration of Felix.
In 794 was held another council at Frankfurt, at which Alcuin and other English clergy were present. Felix was summoned to attend, and heard his heresy again condemned and anathematised, the decree to this effect being sent to Elipandus.[1] Alcuin's book was read by Charles, and sent into Septimania by the hands of the abbot Benedict.
The next council was held at Rome in 798 to confirm the one at Frankfurt.[2] In 799 came out Felix's answer to Alcuin, sent by him first to Elipandus, and, after being shewn to the Cordovan clergy, sent on to Charles. Alcuin is charged to answer it, with Paulinus and the Pope as his coadjutors.
In the same year another council was held at Aix, where Alcuin argued for a week with Felix, and apparently convinced him, for Felix again recanted, and even wrote a confession of faith discarding the word adoption, but still preserving the distinction of predicates belonging to the two natures.[3] Alcuin's book, after being revised by Charles, was published 800 A.D. Previously to this he had written to Elipandus, who answered in no measured terms, accusing Alcuin, among other things, of enormous wealth. This letter was sent through Felix, and, in answer, Alcuin wrote the book against Elipandus, which we now have, and which was the means of converting twenty thousand heretics in Gothic Gaul.[4] But in spite of Emperor or Pope, of the books of Alcuin, or the anathemas of the councils, neither Felix nor Elipandus really gave up his new doctrines, and even the former continued to make converts. Elipandus, though very old[5] at this time (800 A.D.), lived ten years longer, and Felix survived him eight years;[6] and they both died persisting in their error.[7]
[1] Fleury, v. 243, says there was no anathema; but Migne, xcvi. 858, gives us the canon: "Anathematizata esto impia ac nefanda haeresis Elipandi Toletanae sedis Episcopi, et Felix (sic) Orgellitani, eorumque sequacium."
[2] Neander, v. 228.
[3] Ibid., p. 232.
[4] Froben, sec, 82. Neander says 10,000.
[5] Alcuin adv. Elip. Preface to Leidrad: "Non pro eius tantummodo laboravi salute, quem timeo forsan citius vel morte praereptum esse propter decrepitam in eo senectutem."
[6] Or perhaps six.
[7] No reliance can be placed in the statement of the Pseudo-Luitprand, who, in a letter to Recemundus, speaking of Elipandus, says: "Postquam illius erroris sui de adoptione Christi sero et vere poenituit, ad quod manifestandum concilium (795) episcoporum ... collegit; et coram omnibus abiurato publice errore fidem sanctae ecclesiae Romanae confessus est." These words in italics reveal a later hand. Cp. also sec. 259 and Julianus. Alcuin, in a letter to Aquila, bishop of Salisbury, says that Elipandus in 800 A.D. still adhered to his error.
We have dealt somewhat at length with the Adoptionist heresy, both from its interest and importance, and because, as mentioned above, there are some reasons for thinking that it was the outcome of a wish to conciliate Mohammedan opinion. It will be as well to recapitulate such evidence as we have obtained on this point. But we must not expect to find the traces of Mohammedan influence in the development, so much as in the origination, of the theory. What we do find is slight enough, amounting to no more than this:—
(a.) That the one point, which repelled the Mohammedan from genuine Christianity—setting aside for a moment the transcendental mystery of the Trinity—was the Divinity of Christ. Anything, therefore, that tended to emphasise the humanity of Jesus, or to obscure the great fact of Christ the Man, being Son of God, which sounded so offensive to Mohammedan ears, would so far bring the Christian creed nearer to the Mohammedan's acceptance, by assimilating the Christian conception of Christ, to that which appears so often in the Koran.[1] There can be no doubt that the theory of adoption, if carried to its logical conclusion, did contribute to this result:
(b.) That Elipandus was accused of receiving the help of the secular arm in disseminating his heretical opinions:
(c.) That the application of the term Servant to Christ, besides being authorised by texts from Scripture, is countenanced in two passages from the Koran:
(d.) That Leo III., speaking of, Felix's return to Spain, and his relapse into error, implies that it was due to his renewed contact with infidels who held similar views:
(e.) That in a passage, quoted by Enhueber, Elipandus is said to have lost his hold on the truth in consequence of his close intercourse with the Arabs:
(f.) That Elipandus accused Etherius of being a false prophet, that is, for giving, as has been conjectured, a Mohammedan interpretation to the Beast in the Revelation of St John.
Something must now be said of one more doctrine, which, though it did not arise in Spain, nor perhaps much affected it, yet was originated by a Spaniard, and a disciple of Felix,[2]—Claudius, Bishop of Turin. Some have seen in this doctrine, which was an offshoot of Iconoclasm, traces of Adoptionism, a thing not unlikely in itself.[3]
Of the relations of Claudius to the Saracens we have the direct statement of one of his opponents, who said that the Jews praised him, and called him the wisest among the Christians; and that he on his side highly commended them and the Saracens.[4] Yet his tendency seems to have been against the Judaizing of the Church.[5]
[1] Fifty years later Alvar ("Ind. Lum.," sec. 9), accuses certain Christians of dissembling their religion under fear of persecution:— "Deum Christum non aperte coram eis (i.e. Saracenis) sed fugatis sermonibus proferunt, Verbum Dei et Spiritum, ut illi asserunt, profitentes, suasque confessiones corde, quasi Deo omnia inspiciente, servantes."
[2] Jonas of Orleans (Migne, cvi. p. 330) calls him so, and says elsewhere, "Felix resuscitur in Claudio."
[3] Neander, vi. 119.
[4] Fleury, v. 398.
[5] Neander, vi. 125.
The great Iconoclastic reform, which arose in the East, undoubtedly received its originating impulse from the Moslems. In 719 the Khalif destroyed all images in Syria. His example was followed in 730 by the Eastern Emperor, Leo the Isaurian. He is said to have been persuaded to this measure by a man named Bezer, who had been some years in captivity among the Saracens.[1] In 754 the great council of Constantinople condemned images. Unfortunately neither the great patriarchates nor the Pope were represented, and so this council never obtained-the sanction of all Christendom; and its decrees were reversed in 787 at the Council of Nicæa. In 790 appeared the Libri Carolini, in which we rejoice to find our English Alcuin helping Charles the Great to make a powerful and reasonable protest against the worship of images.[2] In 794 this protest was upheld by the German Council of Frankfurt. But the Pope, and his militia,[3] the monks, made a strenuous opposition to any reform in this quarter, and the recognition of images became part and parcel of Roman Catholic Christianity.
Claudius was made bishop of Turin in 828.[4] Though placed over an Italian diocese, he soon shewed the independence, which he had imbibed in the free air of Spain, where the Mohammedan supremacy had at least the advantage of making the supremacy of the Pope impossible. Finding that the people of his diocese paid worship to their images, Claudius set to work to deface, burn, and abolish, all images and crosses in his bishopric. In respect to the crosses he went further than other Iconoclasts, in which we can perhaps trace his Adoptionist training.[5]
These new views did not, as might be expected, find favour with the Catholic party, whose cause was taken up by Theodemir, abbot of Nîmes, a friend of Claudius', by Jonas of Orleans, and Dungal, an Irish priest. But, as in the case of Felix, the heresiarch was more than a match for his opponents in argument.[6]
[1] Fleury, xl. ii. 1, says he was an apostate. See Mendham, Seventh General Council, Introd., pp. xii. xiv.
[2] "Adorationem soli Deo debitam imaginibus impertire aut segnitiae est, si utcumque agitur, aut insaniae, vel potius infidelitatis, si pertinaciter defenditur."—III. c. 24.
"Imagines vero, omni cultura et adoratione seclusa, utrum in basilicis propter memoriam rerum gestarum sint, nullum fidei Catholicae afferre poterunt praeiudicium, quippe cum ad peragenda nostrae salutis mysteria nullum penitus officium habere noscantur."—III. c. 21.
[3] Prescott.
[4] Neander says 814, Herzog 820.
[5] Neander, v. 119. The Spanish Christians were not free from the charge of adoring the cross, as we can see from the answer of the Khalif Abdallah (888) when advised to leave his brother's body at Bobastro: shall I, he said, leave my brother's body to the mercy of those who ring bells and adore the cross. Ibn Hayyan, apud Al Makk., ii. 446.
[6] Fleury, v. 398, confesses that the case of the image-worshippers rests mainly on tradition and the usage of the Church—meaning that they can draw no support from the Bible. He might have remembered Matt. xv. 7—"Ye make void the Word of God because of your tradition."
Claudius' own defence has been lost, but we gather his views from his opponents' quotation of them.
Briefly expressed, they are as follows:—
(a.) Image-worship is really idol-worship:
(b.) If images are to be adored, much more should those living beings be adored, whom the images represent. But we are not permitted to adore God's works, much less may we worship the work of men:[1]
(c.) The cross has no claim to be adored, because Jesus was fastened to it: else must we adore other things with which Jesus was similarly connected; virgins, for example, for Christ was nine months in a virgin's womb; mangers, asses, ships, thorns, for with all these Jesus was connected. To adore the cross we have never been told, but to bear it,[2] that is to deny ourselves. Those generally are the readiest to adore it, who are least ready to bear it either spiritually or physically.[3]
Claudius also had very independent views on the question of papal supremacy.[4] Being summoned before a council, with more wisdom than Felix, he refused to attend it, knowing that his cause would be prejudged, and contented himself with calling the proposed assembly a congregation of asses. He died in 839 in secure possession of his see, and with his Iconoclastic belief unshaken.
Such were the heresies which connect themselves with Spain during the first three hundred years of Arab domination, and which seem to have been, in part at least, due to Mohammedan influence. One more there was, the Albigensian heresy, which broke out one hundred and fifty years later, and was perhaps the outcome of intercourse with the Mohammedanism of Spain.[5]
[1] Jonas of Orleans, apud Migne, vol. cvi. p. 326.
[2] Luke xiv. 27.
[3] Jonas, apud Migne, vol. cvi. p. 351.
[4] See Appendix B, pp. 161-173.
[5] So Blunt. It found followers in Leon. See Mariana, xii. 2, from Lucas of Tuy.