PART II.

CENT. nature, was united to the Son of God, the man III. Jesus; and he considered, in the same manner, the Holy Ghost, as a portion of the everlasting Father []. From hence it appears, that the Sabellians, though they might with justice be called Patripassians, were yet called so by the ancients, in a different sense from that in which this name was given to the Noetians.

Beryllus.

Paul of Samosata.

any

XIV. At this same period, Beryllus an Arabian, bishop of Bozrah, and a man of eminent piety and learning, taught that Christ, before his birth, had no proper subsistence, nor other divinity, than that of the Father; which opinion, when considered with attention, amounts to this: that Christ did not exist before Mary, but that a spirit issuing from God himself, and therefore superior to all human souls, as being a portion of the divine nature, was united to him, at the time of his birth. Beryllus, however, was refuted by Origen, with such a victorious power of argument and zeal, that he yielded up the cause, and returned into the bosom of the church [k].

XV. Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, and also a magistrate, or civil judge, was very different from the pious and candid Beryllus, both in point of morals and doctrine. He was a vain and

arrogant

[i] Almost all the historians, who give accounts of the ancient heresies, have made particular mention of Sabellius. Among others, see Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. vi. p. 252. Athanas. Libro. de sententia Dionysii. All the passages of the ancient authors, relating to Sabellius, are carefully collected by the learned Christopher Wormius, in his Historia Sabelliana, printed in 8vo, at Francfort and Leipsick, 1696.

[k] Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. xx. p. 222. cap. xxxiii. p. 231. Hieronym. Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles. cap. lx. p. 137. Socrates, Hist. Eccles. lib. iii. cap. vii. p. 174; and among the moderns, Le Clerc, Ars Criticæ, vol. i. part II. sect. 1. cap. xiv. p. 293. Chauffepied, Nouveau Diction. Hist. Crit. tom. i. p. 268.

III. PART II.

arrogant man, whom riches had rendered inso- CENT. lent and self-sufficient [7]. He introduced much confusion and trouble into the eastern churches, by his new explication of the doctrine of the gospel concerning the nature of God and Christ, and left behind him a sect, that assumed the title of Paulians, or Paulianists. As far as we can judge of his doctrine, by the accounts of it that have been transmitted to us, it seems to have amounted to this: "That the Son and the Holy "Ghost exist in God, in the same manner as the "faculties of reason and activity do in man; that Christ was born a mere man; but that the "reason or wisdom of the Father descended into him, and by him wrought miracles upon earth, "and instructed the nations; and finally, that, on account of this union of the divine word with "the man Jesus, Christ might, though improperly, "be called God."

66

66

Such were the real sentiments of Paul. He involved them, however, in such deep obscurity, by the ambiguous forms of speech he made use of to explain and defend them, that, after several meetings of the councils held to examine his errors, they could not convict him of heresy. At length, indeed, a council was assembled in the year 269, in which Malchion, the rhetorician, drew him forth from his obscurity, detected his evasions, and exposed him in his true colours; in consequence of which he was degraded from the episcopal order [m].

rabian phi

XVI. It was not only in the point now men- Absurdities tioned, that the doctrine of the gospel suffered, of some Aat this time, from the erroneous fancies of wrong-losophers. headed doctors. For there sprung up now, in

X 2

Arabia,

[1] Euseb. Hist. Eccles. lib. vii. cap. xxx. p. 279. [m] Epistol. Concil. Antioch. ad Paulum in Bibliotheca, Patrum. tom. xi. p. 302. Dionysii Alex. Ep. ad Paulum, ib. p. 273. Decem Pauli Samosateni Quæstiones, ib. p. 278.

PART II.

CENT. Arabia, a certain sort of minute philosophers, the III. disciples of a master, whose obscurity has concealed him from the knowledge of after-ages, who denied the immortality of the soul, believed that it perished with the body; but maintained, at the same time, that it was to be again recalled to life with the body, by the power of God. The philosophers, who held this opinion, were called Arabians, from their country. Origen was called from Egypt, to make head against this rising sect, and disputed against them, in a full council, with such remarkable success, that they abandoned their erroneous sentiments, and returned to the received doctrine of the church.

The troubles excited in the

tians.

XVII. Among the sects that arose in this century, we place that of the Novatians the last. church by This sect cannot be charged with having corrupted the Nova- the doctrine of Christianity by their opinions; their crime was, that by the unreasonable severity of their discipline, they gave occasion to the most deplorable divisions, and made an unhappy rent in the church. Novatian, a presbyter of the church of Rome, a man also of uncommon learning and eloquence, but of an austere and rigid character, entertained the most unfavourable 'sentiments of those who had been separated from the communion of the church. He indulged his inclinations to severity so far, as to deny that such as had fallen into the commission of grievous transgressions, especially those who had apostatized from the faith, under the persecution set on foot by Decius, were to be again received into the bosom of the church. The greatest part of the presbyters, were of a different opinion in this matter, especially Cornelius, whose credit and influence were raised to the highest pitch by the esteem and admiration which his eminent virtues so naturally excited. Hence it happened, that when a bishop was to be chosen, in the year 250,

to

III. PART II.

to succeed Fabianus in the see of Rome, Nova- CENT. tian opposed the election of Cornelius, with the greatest activity and bitterness. His opposition, however, was in vain, for Cornelius was chosen to that eminent office of which his distinguished merit rendered him so highly worthy. Novatian, upon this, separated himself from the jurisdiction of Cornelius, who, in his turn, called a council at Rome, in the year 251, and cut off Novatian and his partisans from the communion of the church. This turbulent man, being thus excommunicated, erected a new society, of which he was the first bishop; and which, on account of the severity of its discipline, was followed by many, and flourished, until the fifth century, in the greatest part of those provinces which had received the gospel. The chief person who assisted Novatian in this enterprize, was Novatus, a Carthaginian presbyter, a man of no principles, who, during the heat of this controversy, had come from Carthage to Rome, to escape the resentment and excommunication of Cyprian, his bishop, with whom he was highly at variance.

Novatians

XVIII. There was no difference, in point of The severi doctrine, between the Novatians and other Chris-ty of the tians. What peculiarly distinguished them was, against the their refusing to re-admit to the communion of lapsed. the church, those who, after baptism, had fallen into the commission of heinous crimes, though they did not pretend, that even such were excluded from all possibility or hopes of salvation. They considered the Christian church as a society where virtue and innocence reigned universally, and none of whose members, from their entrance into it, had defiled themselves with any enormous crime; and, of consequence, they looked upon every society, which re-admitted heinous offenders to its communion, as unworthy of the title of a

PART II.

CENT. true Christian church. It was from hence, also, III. that they assumed the title of Cathari, i. e. the pure; and what shewed still a more extravagant degree of vanity and arrogance, they obliged such as came over to them from the general body of Christians, to submit to be baptized a second time, as a necessary preparation for entering into their society. For such deep root had their favourite opinion concerning the irrevocable rejection of heinous offenders taken in their minds, and so great was its influence upon the sentiments they entertained of other Christian societies, that they considered the baptism administered in those churches, which received the lapsed to their communion, even after the most sincere and undoubted repentance, as absolutely divested of the power of imparting the remission of sins [n].

[n] Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. lib. vi. cap. xliii. p. 242. Cyprianus variis Epistolis, xlix. lii, &c. Albaspinæus, Ob servat. Eccles. lib. ii. cap. xx. xxi. Jos. Aug. Orsi. De cri minum capital. inter veteres Christianos absolutione, p. 254. Kenekel, De hæresi Novatiana.