The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

“Beyond that vast expanse, refulgent with everlasting light, which was considered as the immediate habitation of the Deity and those natures which had been generated from him, these philosophers placed the seat of matter, where, according to them, it had lain from all eternity, a rude, undigested, opaque mass, agitated by turbulent, irregular motions of its own provoking, and nurturing, as in a seed-bed, the rudiments of vice and every species of evil. In this state it was found by a genius or celestial spirit of the higher order, who had been either driven from the abode of the Deity for some offense, or commissioned by him for the purpose, and who reduced it into order, and gave it that arrangement and fashion which the universe now wears. Those who spoke the Greek tongue were accustomed to refer to this creator of the world by the name of Demiurgus. Matter received its inhabitants, both men and other animals, from the same hand that had given to it disposition and symmetry.... When all things were thus completed, Demiurgus, revolting against the great First Cause of every thing, the all-wise and omnipotent God, assumed to himself the exclusive government of this new state, which he apportioned out into provinces or districts; bestowing the administration and command over them on a number of genii or spirits of inferior degree, who had been his associates and assistants.” Mosheim, Intro., sec. 34.

“In the following respects, they [the Gnostic sects] appear to have been all of one mind; namely, that in addition to the Deity, matter, the root and cause of every thing evil and depraved, had existed from all eternity, that this corrupt matter had not been reduced into order by the Supreme and all-benevolent Deity, but by a nature of a far inferior rank; that the founder of the world, therefore, and the Deity, were beings between whom no sort of relationship whatever existed.” Ibid., 1., sec. 65.

These representations of the sentiments of the Orientals may suffice to show that the Arch-apostate claimed to be the creator and prince of this world, and led his followers to adopt that usurped and impious claim as a primary article of their faith, and to worship and serve him accordingly. Nor does it otherwise seem possible to account for the origin and adoption, at a very early period, of the doctrine of two antagonist principles or powers, one as the creator of the world and author of all evil, the other as an ineffectually counteracting agent of good.

Divested of Eastern figure, and of bias from Western notions of mythology and polytheism, the Oriental doctrine plainly exhibits Satan as the creator and ruler of this world, and, on that ground, as exacting the homage of its population. This primary arrogation on his part is the ground of all idolatry, and of the great heresies of Gnostic and Popish origin. Accordingly, the great antagonism which, since the fall, has been in progress in the view of the whole universe, and of which the termination is to fill the hosts of heaven with adoring and rapturous ecstacy, and the ransomed Church with ceaseless exultation and praise, exhibits the great Adversary as chief of a rebel faction of his own species, instigating the original revolt, and ruling as his vassals the race of man, arrogating the titles and prerogatives of the Creator and Sovereign of the world, and persisting in his rebellion, usurpation, and rivalship, till finally vanquished and imprisoned, his purposes defeated, and his works destroyed; and at length displays, on the other hand, the majesty and power, the titles, prerogatives, and rights, the supremacy, rectitude and glory of the self-existent Creator, Proprietor and rightful Sovereign, effectually reässerted, vindicated, and universally acknowledged.

In these earliest and most prevalent systems of heresy are contained the perversions and false doctrines against which the contemporaries and the immediate and later orthodox successors of the apostles were called to contend; and they present in bold relief the points brought into controversy, as they are indicated in the creeds and decrees of Councils specially convened to condemn and suppress them.

To meet the doctrine advanced by the earliest and adopted by the later heretics, that the creation and government of the world was the work of a creature, supposed by some to be the Evil One; by others, a being originally good, but afterwards degenerate; by some, to be one of two rival creatures; by others, to have derived his birth from the Supreme God; they, rejecting with abhorrence such ideas of the Creator, and all the notions associated with them, and impelled by their philosophy, as well as by their knowledge and regard for the Scriptures, to assert in the plainest manner that the Creator of all things is himself uncreated—God, in distinction from creatures—planted themselves upon that as an impregnable position.

But they had at the same time to maintain the doctrines of the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ. They were to assert the Deity of Christ, whom the heretics held to be a creature, and yet ascribed to him the works of creation. It is at least natural to suppose that, to avoid giving the heretics any advantage in popular argument, and to use expressions importing the broadest contrast to theirs, they at first ascribed the creation to God, without any reference to the distinction of Persons in the Godhead; or, to maintain that doctrine at the same time, and to meet the point in question as to the Deity of the Creator, they ascribed the works of creation and providence to God the Father. Whatever may have been the process, this was the result. It is not unlikely that, at the date of the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds, there were many who at length joined in adopting them, who from ignorance, or from the sway of heretical influences, were greatly confused upon these subjects; many, more or less perverted by Gnostic and Judaizing dogmas; many who saw no possibility of maintaining the doctrines which they held concerning the Father, as the Father of Christ the Son by eternal generation, and as the fountain of all authority and power, without specifically ascribing to him the works of creation and providence; many who, relying on the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son, as the most conclusive and unanswerable proof of his Divinity, confined their attention to that, and saw no possibility of meeting and counteracting the dogmas of Cerinthus, or of other heretics, if they ascribed the creation to the Son.

It must be considered that the terms which they employed were adopted expressly to meet the growing and fatal errors which infested the Church; and that they had, at the date of the Nicene Creed, a most powerful motive to concession and accommodation for the sake of unity, in the notion already prevalent concerning schism—defection from the faith of the dominant or Catholic Church, or separation from that body on that account—as a mortal sin.

It was pointedly to their purpose to maintain, in opposition to Cerinthus, that the Christ was the Son of God, and the only being designated by that title; and equally to their purpose, in opposition to Arius, to maintain that he was not created. They were to meet these points somehow, or accomplish nothing against the most formidable heresies. They hit upon a phraseology which, if it be not wholly unintelligible to mortals, was probably then deemed to be unanswerable, in the assertion that he was the Son by eternal generation; begotten, not made, &c.

The language of the creeds, hereafter more particularly referred to, is presumed to have become gradually familiar to the opposers of heresy before it was embodied in those formularies. They express in a condensed form the sentiments and terms by which the leading controvertists repelled the dominant heresies of the time.