of science falsely so-called." (1 Tim. i. 4; vi. 20.) How, they argued, if matter were evil, could one of these perfect Spirits, such as they imagined Christ to be, be united to a human body? It was to them an impossible conjunction of good with evil, of light with darkness.

There were two ways in which they explained our Lord's life on earth.

(a) Some said that His human flesh was not real, but only apparent; that He was a phantom and thus that "a shadow was nailed in appearance to a cross," which was only apparent also. It is to this form of error that St. John is constantly referring, when in his Gospel, he lays such stress on the Word being made flesh (St. John i. 14); and in his First Epistle he speaks of having "seen and handled the Word of life," and says, "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God;" and again in his Second Epistle, "Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." Indeed this seems to have been the earliest kind of error which arose in the Church and it consisted in the denial not so much of the divinity, as of the manhood of our Lord.

(b) On the other hand, there were other Gnostic sects who explained the Incarnation differently. They held that our Lord was a real man, but the Son of Joseph and Mary, on whom the Christ descended at His Baptism, and from whom He departed before His crucifixion. In either case the doctrine of the Incarnation was corrupted. In the first case our Lord was neither perfect God nor perfect man, in the second he was a mere man with whom the Christ was for a time united.

The Gnostic heresies were however obsolete, or nearly so, when the Athanasian Creed was written.

II. Let us pass to those forms of error against which this language of the Creed was undoubtedly directed. "For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;

"God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten. before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance of his Mother, born in the world."

1. The first error referred to is that of Arius, already explained in its bearing on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, in the two previous Addresses.

His error is necessarily again referred to in relation to the Incarnation, because that doctrine involves a belief in the perfection of our Lord's Godhead, which Arius denied, The words "God, of the Substance of the Father," mean, as we have seen, that our Lord partook of the Divine nature, the Godhead of the Father, in all that pertained to it. The words, "begotten before the worlds," mean "before all worlds"-before time began, from all eternity. Now Arius would not have denied the existence of the Son before this world was made, but he put his denial in this most subtle form. "There was a time," he said, "when He was not 1," i.e. He was not from all eternity, and if so, He was not perfect God, not equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead, but after all only "a creature."

That is the first great error, with which this part of the Creed, as well as the earlier portion which we considered in the previous Address, is concerned.

2. And now we come to the second, the error of · ἦν ὅτε οὐκ ἦν.

1

Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, which came to a head about A. D. 376, and the clear reference to which was explained to be one of our chief clues to the date of the Creed.

Read verses 32-37:

"Perfect God, and perfect Man; of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting;

Equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching His Manhood. "Who although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ;

66

One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God;

"One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.

"For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ."

The error of Apollinaris was a directly contrary one to that of Arius, and indeed it was by his strenuous opposition to the teaching of Arius that he seems to have been led into it, for in his endeavour to exalt the Godhead of our Lord he impaired men's belief in the perfection of His manhood. He taught that our Lord had a human body indeed, and an animal soul or principle of life (vʊxì), such as belongs to every living creature, but he maintained that His Godhead took the place of that higher, or "reasonable soul" (voûs), which belongs to man as distinct from the animal creation.1 Thus he denied the perfection of Christ's manhood, which consisted. Apollinaris argued that if our Lord had had a human mind, or "reasonable soul," He must have had sinful instincts, and that the one Christ would have been in fact two. Bright's Church History, p. 146. Hence the language of the Creed "not two but one Christ' is by many believed to refer to Apollinaris rather than Nestorius.

1

in the possession of a perfect human soul, as well as a perfect human body.

I have already explained what is meant in the first two of these verses.

The teaching of the Creed is here identical with that of the Second Article of the Church of England, that in Christ "two whole and perfect natures were joined together in One Person," the perfect nature of God and the perfect nature of man, and that He, who thus unites these two perfect natures in Himself, must be "equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead," a truth which was laid down in the earlier part of the Creed1; and "inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood," a truth which our Lord Himself declared when He said, "My Father is greater than I 2." The next verse maintains the unity of His Person. "Who although He be God and Man: yet He is not two, but one Christ;"

For the followers of Apollinaris had affirmed, that to say, as the Church did, that Christ had a human soul, as well as a Divine Spirit, was to make two Christs. So also in verses 35, 36:

"One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by taking of the Manhood into God;

"One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person; " the teaching of Apollinaris was aimed at for it converted the Godhead into flesh, into human nature, by making it take the place of a human soul in Christ; and it made a confusion of substance,”—of the nature or essence of God and man, instead of keeping each distinct though united in one Person; the true doctrine being that the

1 Verses 6 and 25, 26.

2 See above, p. 33.

Second Person of the Holy Trinity, "the Word," took man's nature into union with His Godhead, not by lowering His Godhead or confusing it with His manhood, but by exalting His manhood, and dignifying it by this ineffable union with His Godhead. And so to use the illustration of the Creed, and it is no more than an illustration-"As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.”

Such are the leading errors in regard to the doctrine of the Incarnation against which the Creed proteststhose of the Gnostics, and those of Arius and Apollinaris, and it needs but a little reflection to see how destructive any of these must have proved, had it been allowed to prevail.

The errors of the Gnostics were strange and alien from our modes of thought, but they were none the less deadly under the circumstances and at the time when they first arose. Being systems compounded of heathen philosophy with but a slight admixture of Christian teaching, the Christ whom they set forth was either a phantastic Being, with whom men could have had no real affinity, or a mere man, endowed with superhuman powers, which they supposed Him to have received by the descent upon Him at His baptism of a spiritual being, who came to Him for a time and again departed. In either case mankind could not have been redeemed or lifted up by such a Christ. Christianity would have been resolved into a philosophic dream without life or power.

Nor again could Arianism even in its highest form, -and it has ever tended downwards-have given any solid ground of hope to men. Had Christ been less than Perfect God-had He been begotten in time, and thus a creature, it would have been idolatry to have worshipped Him, while His own