[489]. Milman’s Ed. vol. iii. p. 331.
[490]. Waddington, Church Hist. p. 93.
[491]. Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 210.
[492]. “The Christian Religion, which in itself is plain and simple, he (Constantius) confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of bishops, galloping from every side to the Assemblies, which they call synods; and while they laboured to reduce the whole sect to their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.”—Ammianus, as quoted by Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 347.
[493]. “Constantine’s conduct was variable afterwards, for he certainly understood not this perplexed and obscure controversy, and he acted as he was influenced at different times by the ecclesiastics of each party, who accused one another, not only of heterodoxy, but of being enemies to the Emperor, and of other faults and misdemeanors.”—Jortin.
[494]. “Notwithstanding all which it must be granted, that though this co-essentiality of the three persons in the Trinity does imply them to be all God, yet does it not follow from thence of necessity that they are therefore One God.”—Cudworth, p. 596.
[495]. “That little is said concerning the separate divinity of the Spirit of God in the Scripture is evident to every body; but the reason that Epiphanius gives for it, will not be easily imagined. In order to account for the Apostles saying so little concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and omitting the mention of him after that of the Father and the Son, (as when Paul says, ‘there is one God and Father of all, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,’) he says that ‘the Apostles writing by the inspiration of the Spirit, He did not choose to introduce much commendation of Himself, lest it should give us an example of commending ourselves.’”—Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of Christianity, p. 60.
[496]. “The Holy Spirit, if he be God, as the objection is stated by Basil, must either be begotten or unbegotten. If he be unbegotten, he is the Father; if begotten, the Son; and if he is neither begotten nor unbegotten, he is a creature.”—Priestley’s Hist. Early Opinions, vol. ii. 331.
This is the least offensive specimen I could find of the common objections made to the separate deity of the Holy Ghost at the time the doctrine was first proposed. The plainer and coarser forms of the objection, unhesitatingly handled by the Fathers, I withhold from reverence. But let the reader consult the Ecclesiastical History of the Period. The difficulty stated by Athanasius, Basil, and others, was overcome by establishing a certain mysterious or rather no-meaning difference between begotten and proceeding. Such is always the easy refuge of mystics. The line is a faint one between unintelligible ideas and no ideas at all. “The nativity of the Son,” says Austin, “differs from the procession of the Spirit, otherwise they would be brothers.” I doubt whether it is right to disclose to all eyes the morbid anatomy of Theology; but I assure my readers that I am reverentially forbearing.
[497]. “In the age of religious freedom, which was determined by the Council of Nice, the dignity of Christ was measured by private judgment, according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established on the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics trembled on the edge of a precipice, where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall; and the manifold inconveniences of this creed were aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce; that God himself, the second person of an equal and consubstantial Trinity, was manifested in the flesh; that a being who pervades the universe, had been confined in the womb of Mary; that his eternal duration had been marked by the days, and months, and years of human existence; that the Almighty had been scourged and crucified; that his impassible essence had felt pain and anguish; that his omniscience was not exempt from ignorance; and that the source of life and immortality expired on Mount Calvary. These alarming consequences were affirmed with unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, and one of the luminaries of the church. The son of a learned grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece; eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes of Apollinaris, were humbly devoted to the service of religion. The worthy friend of Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian, he bravely wrestled with the Arians and Polytheists, and though he affected the rigour of geometrical demonstration, his Commentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the Scriptures. A mystery which had long floated in the looseness of popular belief, was defined by his perverse diligence in a technical form; and he first proclaimed the memorable words, “One incarnate nature of Christ,” which are still re-echoed with hostile clamours in the churches of Asia, Egypt, and Æthiopia. He taught that the Godhead was united or mingled with the body of a man; and that the Logos, the eternal wisdom, supplied in the flesh the place and office of a human soul.”—Gibbon, vol. viii. p. 279.