A passage in Theodoret relative to the opinion of Sabellius, and particularly to his opinion on this point, first occurs to us here. This assigns the business of legislation or law-giving to the Father. But it is plain that we cannot interpret this passage according to the letter. The avooonnoα [becoming inἀνθρωπῆσαι carnate] which is predicated of the Son, and the iniqournoue [being conversant with-indwelling] which is predicated of the Spirit, will not compare well with the office of legislation assigned to the Father; for the one is state or condition, while the other is action. If now we seek for the action which is predicated of the Son and Spirit, so as to complete the comparison; and should trust to the representations of Epiphanius respecting Sabellius,† so far as this point is concerned; still legislation is not the whole, or only official business of the father. It would not be so, even in case one should boldly and without any solid support assume the position, that according to Sabellius, the Trinity are concerned only with operations upon men of a spiritual nature. Sabellius, with other ancient fathers, would not have disdained to regard even heathen wisdom as something preparatory to Christianity; and this, as well as legislating for the Jews, he must have ascribed to the Father.

Another passage in Hilary+ gives us only some obscure intimation; because one does not well know how to interpret na

* Τὸν αὐτὸν ὡς πατέρα νομοθετῆσαι, ὡς υἱὸν ἐνανθρωπῆσαι, ἐπιφοιτñoαι de ás пrεvua. Fab. Haeret. III. [That the same Being, as Father, gives laws; as Son, becomes incarnate; as Spirit, is conversant with us.']

† πεμφθέντα δὲ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ ἐργασάμενον πάντα ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, τὰ τῆς οἰκονομίας τῆς εὐαγγελικῆς καὶ σωτηρίας τῶν ἀνθρώπων . . . τὸ δὲ ἅγιον πνεῦμα πέμπεσθαι εἰς τὸν κόσμον, καὶ καθεξῆς καὶ καθ ̓ ἕκαστα εἰς ἕκαστ τον τῶν καταξιουμένων, ἀναζωογονεῖν δὲ τὸν τοιοῦτον καὶ ἀναζέειν, κ. τ. λ. ['The Son having been sent, and having done all things in the world which had respect to the gospel-economy and the salvation of men... and the Holy Spirit to be sent into the world, both in due order and in all respects to each one of those who are deemed worthy, to regenerate such an one and to quicken him, etc."]

... Ut in assumpto homine se Filium Dei nuncupet, in natura vero Deum Patrem ; et unus ac solus, personali demutatione se nunc in alio mentiatur; de Trinit. VII. 39. ['That he might name him Son of God in his incarnate condition; in nature, however, he would name God the Father; and although he is one and sole, yet by a change of person he feigns himself to exist in different ways.']

tura, i. e. whether it is to be taken as the Greek quos, or in the sense of οὐσία. One cannot therefore decide whether he is to construe the passage in naturâ vero Deum patrem, as meaning that he is called Father considered in reference to his own nature; or whether (putting the words in natura in contrast with assumpto homine) we are to interpret the phrase as meaning, that he is called Father as considered in reference to the creation. The first supposition seems to be the more probable; inasmuch as Hilary does not appear to have apprehended the distinction made by Sabellius between the Father and the Godhead in and of itself. Yet still, that the latter mode of interpretation harmonizes well with the opinion of Sabellius, may bẹ made out from two different considerations.

In the first place, Sabellius must have ascribed the creation and government of the world, so far as these were not directly involved in the administration of the kingdom of grace, to the Godhead as it is in itself, and not to the Trinity as such; or else he must have ascribed it solely to the Father. For the Son as such, did not exist before the incarnation; [i. e. the human nature as well as the divine, was necessary in his view to constitute Son in the appropriate sense of this word]. In like manner the Spirit did not exist as such [i. e. in his idia nɛqıroaqn], before the creation of man. Even in case Sabellius held the Old and New Testament dispensation to be substantially the same, he might have entertained such a view. But if now in fact Sabellius held that the Trinity as such is concerned merely with the spiritual affairs of men, and that all other providential control is to be assigned simply to the Godhead [and not to the Father as such]; then the similitude employed by him, in respect to the Spirit and his gifts, would have been inept; for the Spirit operates only by his gifts; and after the analogy of this, the Godhead must then operate only by some person of the Trinity, and not in and of itself. It would follow from this, that only the Father was regarded by Sabellius as creating and preserving.

In the second place; if Sabellius had ascribed the creation and government of the world only to the Godhead as it is in itself; while he ascribed to the Father as a peculiar лɛıyoαń of the Godhead only legislation and what was immediately connected with it; this would have given to his doctrine such a distinct and remarkable cast, that no one would then have failed to perceive (for this failure often happened) the great dif

ference that he made between the Father and the Movás. This would happen, only in case Sabellius was wont to ascribe to the Father nearly all those operations ad extra, which others commonly did; and so they were easily led by this to imagine, that he employed the word Father in the same sense as they did, [i. e. as equivalent to the Movάs.]

Assuming this as probable, we may now see how Sabellius could retain the expressions Father and Son, in order to communicate his views respecting the Trinity, in such a sense that the first member of the Trinity was named Father, not merely as the Creator of all things, but also in relation to the second person of the Godhead; although Sabellius did not in reality derive the second person from the first. If the second person was a peculiar neoyoάqn, or (if I may be allowed the expression) phasis of the Godhead, only in relation to the incarnation, yet this depended on that arrangement of the world in which the first person or Father had developed himself; and this relation of dependence, or this causal and consequential connection of things, might very well be expressed by the terms FATHER and SON. Yea, even if it were established as a general truth, that Son of God meant appropriately the God-Man, yet Sabellius could employ the expression Son tropically and in the way of accommodation respecting the divine nature in the Redeemer, although this was the same as that in the Father, because a peculiar voua (if we may so speak on the present occasion) was appropriate to that nature, insomuch as it dwelt in a particular person which was connected with, or in a sense dependent on, an arrangement of the world made by the Father.

How long Sabellius satisfied himself with such views respecting Father and Son only, as two denominations (ovouάorai) in the Godhead peculiarly related to each other, without adding to them the Spirit, we do not certainly know. This however

should be remarked, viz., we are not to consider that Sabellius, for the greater length of time, and in most of his conversation and writings, made mention only of Father and Son, merely because Basil and Athanasius, in making opposition to his views, hardly ever speak of any Being but Father and Son. We do not feel necessitated here to inquire after a special reason why Sabellius admitted the Spirit to like claims with those of the Father and Son; because we are satisfied that this reason lay in the gradual unfolding of Christian sentiment. In like manner we find it altogether natural to suppose, that each of the VOL. VI. No. 19. 8

two parties did, for a long time, take more interest in the questions respecting Father and Son, because these questions presented more points for discussion, and more that was interesting, than those which related merely to the Spirit. Moreover, in later times, Sabellius was controverted principally in connection with the Arian disputes; and consequently his views respecting Father and Son were much more frequently drawn into question, than those in regard to the Holy Spirit.

In respect to the Spirit, his views are disclosed principally by the two passages already cited above from Epiphanius, where the Spirit is compared with the warming influence of the sun; and by that in Athanasius, where the Spirit with his gifts is made the similitude of the divine Unity and Trinity. In the former passage, the Spirit is represented in immediate relation to individual men; but this view is corrected by an accurate consideration of the latter passage. For if the Spirit as he is in himself, is as such in particular men, how shall we distinguish him, on the one hand, from his own gifts, which constitute what comes from him and belongs to particular men? And on the other hand, how shall he be taken as an appropriate image of the Movás, in case we consider him as personally so divided and multiplied?

Hence we come to the conclusion, that Sabellius' view must have been for substance as follows, and that it may be thus represented. That the Holy Spirit operated only in believers, his opponents held. But that the Holy Spirit as such dwelt personally in particular individuals, could not have been held by Sabellius; for then he would have represented him as manifold. And since the Godhead, as viewed by him, was the same in all the persons of the Trinity, therefore every particular individual thus dwelt in, would have been a Christ, [because God would be in him]. Consequently Sabellius could have supposed only that the Spirit dwelt in the community of Christians, i. e. the church, as one in one. But every spiritual Suvaus of believers, with whom the Spirit that animated the whole connected himself, was a zápioua, i. e. a peculiar exertion of the active power of the Spirit, whose being or presence therein was circumscribed in a peculiar manner.

This, rightly made use of, may afford us now some of the needed explanation in respect to Sabellius' mode of representation. The Spirit developed himself as xaotoua, only as he united himself with the psychological powers or functions of

men, and manifested himself in this way.

In like manner the

simple Unity of the Godhead becomes σχῆμα or πρόσωπον (in the sense which Sabellius attached to these words),* only by union with something else, but still in such a way as to suffer no change in itself; even as the Spirit remains one and the same, in all the diversity of zaoiopara which it bestows.

The self same one Godhead, then, when developed in the person of the Redemer, is according to him the second лóσшnov in the Trinity; but still without undergoing any change of its own proper nature by this union. This seems to be equivalent to saying, that before union with the Redeemer, this second person as such (κατ ̓ ἰδίαν τῆς θείας ουσίας περιγραφήν) had no proper existence. Once united, however, the state or condition that ensues is abiding; and the one and the same Godhead developed himself therein in a peculiar way, so long as the person of the Redeemer exists, or (as we have seen above) so long as his office continues; and all the virtues and active powers of the Redeemer, while this second noоoшлov thus developes itself in him, stand in the relation to him as the gifts of the Spirit do to the Spirit himself.

In like manner, when the one and the same God unites himself with the church, he becomes the third person, the Spirit, who developes himself by the abundance of gifts, which have a kind of organized symmetry or relation. In and by himself, however, the one God remains in this case unchanged and undivided. Here also it may be said, that the Spirit did not become a peculiar лоóбшnov, before that community existed wherein he operates and dwells in his peculiar manner, viz. the church.

From this view of the subject it is plain, that whether Sabellius held the Spirit of the Old Testament to be the same as to пvεйμa rò äɣiov, depended on the fact, whether he acknowledged a true church under the Old Testament.

The question still remains, how the personality of the Father was constituted. If this sustained a relation to the Unity, such as that sustained by the other persons, in what way was the Godhead affected, or how did it develope itself, in order to be called Father?

̓Επεὶ τόνγε ἀνυπόστατον τῶν προσώπων ἀναπλασμὸν οὐδὲ ὁ Σαβέλλιος παρητήσατο, εἰπὼν τὸν αὐτὸν θεὸν ἕνα τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ ὄντα, κ. τ. 2. Basil. Ep. 210. [Since Sabellius himself did not reject the formation of persons that did not convey the idea of hypostasis, saying that the same God, being one in substance, etc."]