< HKIST 



CHRI8TADELPHIAN8 



213 



li;i> In-en 'landed down to UH was the result of pro- 

 longed. and not uiifrei|iieiit ly acrimonious ili.-cus 

 MOH~. I'rior to the Council of Nice (325 \.i>.i 

 various ( 'InUtological theories were promulgated 

 l.y tin- Kliiouiies, t<i wlnuu In-longed tin- N.I/.IM-IH--, 

 i lie < 'erinthians, and the (Jnostii-. of tin- pseudo- 

 Clementine type, l>y the Doceta-, and ly the 

 tinoMh-s proper. Some of these denied the pre- 

 e\i>tenre of Christ, and attributed his peculiar 

 greatness to a supernatural endowment conferred 

 upon liim at his baptism, while others resolved 

 his humanity into a more phantom, and repre- 

 liis person as composed of a spiritual .Kon. 



part it's were, however, but short-lived. 

 ftirmidable were the Sabellians and the 

 \ii.ui-. The former denied the doctrine of the 

 immanent Trinity. To them, accordingly, the 

 lusher nature of Christ was simply absolute Deity 

 in self manifestation. The Arians, on the other 

 hand, represented Jesus as the first and loftiest of 

 ( lotl's creatures. In their view he was not, there- 

 fore, truly God. It was specially with a reference 

 to these two opposing parties that the Council of 

 Nice was summoned uy Constantitie. The results 

 of the deliberations of this council are embodied in 

 the well-known Nicene Creed. Both Sabellianism 

 and Arianism were pronounced heretical, and the 

 eternal Sonship of Christ was solemnly asserted. 

 The question, however, remained undecided how 

 the union between the divine and the human in 

 his person was to be expressed. Apollinaris, 

 Bishop of Laodicea, advanced the theory that 

 Christ's manhood was constituted solely of an 

 animal soul and body, while the Logos took the 

 place of the mind, or spirit, in him. His true 

 1 1 a inanity was thus denied. Nestorius, Bishop of 

 Constantinople, started a rival theory. While 

 granting the true divinity and humanity of Christ, 

 lie denied their union in a single, self-conscious 

 personality. According to him the union was only 

 moral or sympathetic. The Nestorian theory thus 

 involved the breaking up of the personality into a 

 duality. Eutyches of Constantinople wrote against 

 Nestorianism, but his zeal carried him to the other 

 extreme. His contention was that in the incarna- 

 tinn the human was transmuted into the divine. 

 He thus obliterated the humanity. 



At the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D. ) all these 

 views were condemned, and the Christological 

 formula which is still regarded as orthodox was 

 framed. The orthodox doctrine, briefly stated, 

 holds that in the unity of the person of Jesus 

 Christ there are two natures, a divine and a 

 human, each nature being complete and entire, 

 and that these are so intimately and indissolubly 

 united as to constitute not a third nature, but a 

 person. It warns us against either dividing the 

 person or confounding the natures. 



Notwithstanding the adoption of this creed, con- 

 troversy was not by any means brought to an end. 

 For more than three centuries questions of extreme 

 -uKtilty continued to agitate the theological world 

 questions pertaining to the relation of nature to 

 personality, and of both to will. The Monophysite, 

 the Monothelite, and the Adoptianist controversies 

 were concerned with these abstruse points. At the 

 Council of Constantinople (681 A.D.) it was derided 

 that in the one person of Christ there are two 

 natures, two intelligences, two energies, and two 

 wills. The condemned Monothelites were conse- 

 quently persecuted, and they betook themselves 

 to the mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, 

 where they continued to exist as a distinct sect 

 under the name of Maronites. During the middle 

 ages the church as a whole acquiesced in the 

 decisions of the above-named councils, though 

 individuals occasionally ventured to give expres- 

 sion to views more or less at variance with the 



creeds. In our day, Dvotheletixm, or the doctrine 

 that there are two wills in Christ, is not regarded 

 as essential to oithoduxy. In fact it is largely 

 denied among theologians of high repute. 



At the time oi the Reformation Cnristology once 

 mine Ix-rame a subject of keen controversy. The 

 iM-c;i-ion was a difference of opinion between 

 Luther and Zwingli regarding the presence of 

 Christ in the elements of the ordinance of the 

 Supper. Eventually the Lutherans accepted the 

 doctrine of the coininunicatio idiomatum Le. the 

 communication of the properties of the divine 

 nature of Christ to his humanity. By this doc- 

 trine they sought to establish the ubiquity of 

 Christ's body. The Lutheran dogma was rejected 

 by the Reformed theologians. 



The next important movement in connection 

 with Christology originated with Ladius Socinus 

 ( 1525-62) and his nephew, Faustus Socinus ( 1539- 

 1604). They taught that Christ was a mere man, 

 but distinguished from all others in the following 

 particulars : He was miraculously conceived, was 

 sinless, was specially endowed with the Holy 

 Spirit, was taken up to heaven prior to the com- 

 mencement of his ministry, in order that he 

 might see God and receive instructions from him, 

 he rose from the dead and is now exalted in 

 heaven far above all creatures, he is invested as 

 God's viceroy with all power in heaven and in 

 earth. In view of his exaltation they taught that 

 Christ may justly be termed a God, in a sense 

 different from that in which rulers are termed gods, 

 and therefore he ought to be worshipped. Uni- 

 tarians, who may be regarded as the modern repre- 

 sentatives of the Socimans, speak of Christ as the 

 Ideal Man, but probably none of them would accord 

 him all the high distinctions above specified. 



At the present day there is in vogue a Christo- 

 logical theory known as the doctrine of kenosis 

 ( kenos, ' empty ' ), which is variously set forth by a 

 considerable number of evangelical theologians. It 

 derives its name from the Greek verb ekenose which 

 occurs in Philip, ii. 7. In its modern form the 

 theory is probably traceable to Zinzendprf. It is 

 advocated by such writers as Thomasius, Gess, 

 and Godet. Its aim is to do justice to the genuine 

 development of the Man Jesus Christ. This it 

 seeks to accomplish by postulating .in emptying of 

 himself on the part of the Logos in the act of 

 incarnation. He laid aside, it is said, not only 

 his divine attributes, but even his divine self- 

 consciousness. These he gradually regained during 

 the course of his earthly history, and by the time 

 that he ascended the process was complete. Such 

 in brief is the theory. What its future may be it 

 is vain to guess. As yet, however, the great mass 

 of orthodox theologians look askance at it. 



According to Shedd, the following four factors 

 are necessary in order to a complete conception of 

 Christ's Person: (1) True and proper deity; (2) 

 true and proper humanity ; (3) the union of deity 

 and humanity in one person ;-(4) the distinction of 

 deity from humanity in the one person, so that 

 there be no mixture of natures. 



The standard book on the history of Christology is 

 Dorner's Doctrine of the P ergon of Christ. See also 

 Bull's Defence of the Nicene Creed, and his Judgment of 

 (In ( 'nthiific Church, Ac. : Bruce's Humiliation of Christ ; 

 Hagenbach's History of Doctrines; and the separate 

 articles on the heresies (Amt'8, NESTOKIUS, \i-.i. 



Christ, DISCIPLES OF. See CAMPBELL (ALEX.). 



4'lirist jMh'lph ians. or ' Brethren of Christ,' 

 a small religious body claiming to represent the 

 true faith ami practice of apostolic times, as revived 

 i>\ l>r John Thomas, Brooklyn, U.S., who was 

 born in 1805 and died in 1871, and was the lead- 

 ing advocate of their views. (After him they ar* 



