INDEX III.

SUBJECTS, ETC.

63

bellius respecting the Son, which is of such a nature as to convey the idea, that he could return back to the Unity and cease to exist any longer in an ἰδία περιγραφή.* But such an assertion is only one of those hypothetical declarations, which are often made in order to place a sentiment in as strong a light as possible. To Sabellius and his friends, no doubt, it seemed very important to maintain, that Trinity was not essential to Godhead as in itself considered, but only in reference to created beings and on their account. Indeed their opponents themselves recognized this; inasmuch as they named the whole doctrine respecting the Trinity the secret of the oixovoμía, i. e. of the gospel-dispensation. Still they did not hold this position fast; inasmuch as they further asserted, that if the Logos were not ovoons and upsoros [essential and substantial], then must God be a Being compounded of essence and attribute.†

Now according to this mode of representation, hypostasis in the divine Being must be something necessarily existent and independent of all oixovouia. Such a view of the subject Sabellius felt himself bound very strongly to oppose, in order to preserve a proper balance between uovaggia on the one hand, i. e. the doctrine concerning the essential unity of the Godhead, and the oixovouia on the other, i. e. the doctrine respecting those distinctions in the Godhead which have relation to the method of salvation as published to men. This opposition he could not express in a stronger manner, than by the declaration, that the appropriate neoуoan of the Godhead which took place through the incarnation, had such an exclusive relation to men, that if men were to cease, this also would do the same. This opinion did not bind him however to hold to the idea, that the Son ever returns to, and is absorbed by, the Godhead; unless indeed he maintained, that all created beings were absorbed by it in a similar way; of which some intimations given by Athanasius would seem to accuse him.

From the opinion expressed above arose, no doubt, as Epiphanius informs us, the belief that Sabellius had compared the Son to a ray of light, which goes out from the sun and is reflected

It seems to be pretty certain, that Athanasius gives us the assertion of Sabellius, in nearly his own words, in the following formula, νίζ., δι ἡμᾶς γεγέννηται, καὶ μεθ ̓ ἡμᾶς ἀνατρέχει, ἵνα ᾗ ὥσπερ ἦν· Cont. Arian. Orat. IV. 12. [For our sake he was born, and with us was he brought up, that he might be what he was.']

↑ Ibid. 2.

back again.* Appropriately, however, he could regard the reception of Christ into heaven, only as a change of his human condition; not as if the relation of the divine in him toward the Godhead in itself considered, was thereby changed. And the difference between Son and Spirit could in his view, in respect to this point, consist only in this, that the Son lived and acted in our world only a short time, but now exerts his active power in heaven; while the Spirit continues still to act upon and in the church on earth. Confounding these together, Epiphanius might attribute to Sabellius, what in a strictly doctrinal sense he never avowed.

That Sabellius did not hold the Trinity to be only a transitory development, is plain from the imagery which he employed in relation to this subject. I make no particular account here of that similitude, which Epiphanius charges him with employing, viz., that the Father is the body, the Son the soul, and the Spirit the spirit. Although Athanasius himself alludes to this; yet I cannot suppose it to be a genuine sentiment of Sabellius. For if Sabellius had placed the third person of the Trinity as much higher than the first, as the spirit of man stands in rank above his body, stronger objection would have been made to this representation among the orthodox, and more suspicion would have attached to him on account of this, than on all other grounds.

There is another comparison, however, which he seems to have designedly placed in opposition to the usual one; which is, that the Father is like the natural sun; the Son is like the radiance of the light from it; and the Spirit may be compared to the points of the same. Sabellius, however, compares the circular form of the Sun as connected with its motion, its power of giving light and of sending forth heat, with the distinctions in the Godhead; for these are not mere transitory phenomena,

* Haeres. LXII. 1.

Athanas. cont. Sabell. Greg. 13.

† Ἢ ὡς ἐὰν ᾖ ἐν ἡλίῳ, ὄντι μὲν ἐν μιᾷ ὑποστάσει, τρεῖς δὲ ἔχοντι τὰς ἐνεργείας· φημὶ δὲ τὸ φωτιστικόν, καὶ τὸ θάλπον, καὶ αὐτὸ τὴς περιφε Qrias oznμa Epiph. Haeres. LXII. 1. ['Or as in the sun, there being but one hypostasis, there are still three powers; I mean the lightgiving, the nourishing, and the circular form itself.'] In this case, however, the autó [as employed by Epiphanius] means something quite contrary to the opinion of Sabellius, who would have regarded the oxua as nothing more than one of its powers; and thus Sabellius

Theodotus, 334-creed of Praxeas, 339.

|

V.

Venezuela, religious liberty in, 264.

W.

Schwartz, life, noticed, 248. Sinai Mt. visits to, 491. Slavery in Ancient Greece, 133—allusions in Homer, 139-slavery in Argos, Thessaly, 141--in Aegina, Wardlaw's Ethics, noticed, 468. Corinth and Sparta, 142-in A- Washington papers, 242. thens, 144-number of slaves in West Indies, British, 164-relations Athens, 146-modes of making i between and United States, 164men slaves, 147-legal enactments, discovery, 165-treatment of the 148-punishments, 150-slaves em- Indians, 167-account of Guiana, ployed in mines, 153-treatment 168-Jamaica, 169-Trinidad and of slaves at Athens, 155-opinions Tobago, 171-Grenada and St. of Aristotle, 156-of Xenophon and Vincents, 172-Barbadoes and St. Plato, 159-slavery at Delos, 161— Lucia,173-Dominica, Montserrat, letters of Paul, 162. Antigua, etc. 174-Bahamas and Slavery in West Indies, 164---see West Bermudas, 175-Honduras, 176— Indies. introduction of West Indian slaSmith & Dwight's Tour in Armenia, very, 176-actual condition of the 253. slaves, 178-waste of life, 179abolition of the slave trade, 181melioration of slavery, 182-abolition, 183-compensation, 185-grounds of hope in regard to the effect of the measure, 187-statistics of British West Indies, 264— condition of emancipated slaves, 483.

Stuart's New Test. Grammar, 245.
Stuart's Hebrew Grammar, 478.
Sweden, intelligence from, 254.

T.

Texier Charles, Asia Minor, 490.
Tholuck, on Lord's prayer, 384.
Tittmann, on iva, 84.

U.

United States, literary intelligence in,

2.

473-colleges in, 481-literary so Zealand New, language of, 263. cieties, 480.

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