Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
§ 33.8. =Paul of Samosata.=--In Rome and throughout the West
general dynamical Monarchianism expired with Artemon and his
party. In the East, however, it was revived by Paul of Samosata,
in A.D. 260 bishop of the Græco-Syrian capital Antioch, which,
however, was then under the rule of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra.
Attaching himself to the other dynamists, especially the
Theodotians and Artemonites, he went in many respects beyond them.
Maintaining as they did the unipersonality of God (ἓν πρόσωπον),
he yet admitted a distinction of Father, Son (λόγος) and Spirit
(σοφία) the two last, however, being essentially identical
attributes of the first, and also the distinction of the
λόγος προφορικός from the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, the one being the
ἐπιστήμη ἀνυπόστατος operative in the prophets, the other the
ἐπ. ἀνυπ. latent in God. Further, while placing like the dynamists
the personality of Christ in His humanity and acknowledging
His supernatural birth from the Holy Spirit by the Virgin, he
conceived of Him, like the modern Socinians, as working the
way upward, ἐκ προκοπῆς τεθεοποιῆσθαι, _i.e._ by reason of His
unique excellence to divine rank and the obtaining of the divine
name.--Between A.D. 264-269 the Syrian bishops held three large
Synods in regard to him at Antioch, to which also many other
famous bishops of the East were invited. The first two were
without result, for he knew how to conceal the heterodox character
of his views. It was only at the third that the presbyter Malchion,
a practised dialectician and formerly a rhetorician, succeeded
in unmasking him at a public disputation. The Synod now declared
him excommunicated and deprived him of his office, and also
transmitted to all the catholic churches, first of all to Rome
and Alexandria, the records of the disputation together with
a complete report in which he was described as a proud, vain,
pompous, covetous and even immoral man (§ 39, 3). Nevertheless
by the favour of the Queen he kept possession of his bishopric,
and holding a high office at the court he exercised not only
spiritual functions but also great civil authority. But when
Zenobia was overcome by Aurelian in A.D. 272, the rest of the
bishops accused him before the pagan emperor, who decided that
the ecclesiastical buildings should be made over to that one
of the contending bishops whom the Christian bishops of Rome
and Italy should recognise. In these conflicts undoubtedly a
national and political antagonism lay behind the dogmatic and
ecclesiastical dispute (§ 31, 9 e).--At the Synod of A.D. 269
the expression ὁμοούσιος, which since it had been first used by
Sabellius was always regarded with suspicion in church circles,
was dragged into the debate and expressly condemned; and so it is
doubtful whether Paul himself had employed it, or whether, on the
contrary, he wished to charge his opponents with heresy as being
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