in later Greek philosophy, even outside the Platonic schools.[459]
The history of it is beyond our present purpose; but we shall better
understand the relation of Christian theology to current thought if we
take three expressions of the conception at the time when that theology
was being formed—in Plutarch, in Maximus of Tyre, and in Plotinus.
Plutarch says:
“What, then, is that which really exists? It is the Eternal,
the Uncreated, the Undying, to whom time brings no change. For
time is always flowing and never stays: it is a vessel charged
with birth and death: it has a before and after, a ‘will be’
and a ‘has been:’ it belongs to the ‘is not’ rather than to
the ‘is.’ But God is: and that not in time but in eternity,
motionless, timeless, changeless eternity, that has no before
or after: and being One, He fills eternity with one Now, and so
really ‘is,’ not ‘has been,’ or ‘will be’, without beginning
and without ceasing.”[460]
Maximus of Tyre says:
“God, the Father and Fashioner of all things that are, He who
is older than the sun, older than the sky, greater than time
and lapse of time and the whole stream of nature, is unnamed by
legislators, and unspoken by the voice and unseen by the eyes:
and since we cannot apprehend His essence, we lean upon words
and names and animals, and forms of gold and ivory and silver,
and plants and rivers and mountain-peaks and springs of waters,
longing for an intuition of Him, and in our inability naming
by His name all things that are beautiful in this world of
ours.”[461]
And again:
“It is of this Father and Begetter of the universe that Plato
tells us: His name he does not tell us, for he knew it not: nor
does he tell us His colour, for he saw Him not; nor His size,
for he touched Him not. Colour and size are felt by the touch
and seen by the sight: but the Deity Himself is unseen by
the sight, unspoken by the voice, untouched by fleshly touch,
unheard by the hearing, seen only—through its likeness to Him,
and heard only—through its kinship with Him, by the noblest and
purest and clearest-sighted and swiftest and oldest element of
the soul.”[462]
Plotinus similarly, in answer to the old problem, “how from the One,
being such as we have described Him, anything whatever has substance,
instead of the One abiding by Himself,” replies:
“Let us call upon God Himself before we thus answer—not with
uttered words, but stretching forth our souls in prayer to
Him, for this is the only way in which we can pray, alone to
Him who is alone. We must, then, gaze upon Him in the inner
part of us, as in a temple, being as He is by Himself, abiding
still and beyond all things (ἐπέκεινα ἁπάντων). Everything that
moves must have an object towards which it moves. But the One
has no such object; consequently we must not assert movement
of Him.... Let us not think of production in time, when we
speak of things eternal.... What then was produced was produced
without His moving: ... it had its being without His assenting
or willing or being moved in anywise. It was like the light
that surrounds the sun and shines forth from it, though the sun
is itself at rest: it is reflected like an image. So with what
is greatest. That which is next greatest comes forth from Him,
and the next greatest is νοῦς; for νοῦς sees Him and needs Him
alone.”[463]
But the conception of transcendence is capable of taking two forms.
It may be that of a God who passes beyond all the classes into which
sensible phenomena are divisible, by virtue of His being pure Mind,
cognizable only by mind; or it may be that of a God who exists _extra
flammantia moenia mundi_, filling the infinite space which surrounds
and contains all the spheres of material existence. The one God is
transcendent in the proper sense of the term; the other is supra-cosmic.
In either case He is said to be unborn, undying, uncontained; and since
the same terms are thus used to express the elements of both forms of the
conception, it is natural that these forms should readily pass into each
other, and that the distinction between them should not always be present
to a writer’s mind or perceptible in his writings. But the conception in
one or other of its forms fills a large place in later Greek philosophy.
It blended in a common stream with the new currents of religious feeling.
[The process is well illustrated by Philo.]
The words “I am _thy_ God” are used not in a proper but in a
secondary sense. For Being, _quâ_ Being, is out of relation:
itself is full of itself and sufficient for itself, both
before the birth of the world and equally so after it.[464]
He transcends all quality, being better than virtue, better
than knowledge, and better even than the good itself and the
beautiful itself.[465] He is not in space, but beyond it; for
He contains it. He is not in time, for He is the Father of the
universe, which is itself the father of time, since from its
movement time proceeds.[466] He is “without body, parts or
passions”: without feet, for whither should He walk who fills
all things: without hands, for from whom should He receive
anything who possesses all things: without eyes, for how should
He need eyes who made the light.[467] He is invisible, for
how can eyes that are too weak to gaze upon the sun be strong
enough to gaze upon its Maker.[468] He is incomprehensible: not
even the whole universe, much less the human mind, can contain
the conception of Him:[469] we know _that_ He is, we cannot
know _what_ He is:[470] we may see the manifestations of Him
in His works, but it were monstrous folly to go behind His
works and inquire into His essence.[471] He is hence unnamed:
for names are the symbols of created things, whereas His only
attribute is to _be_.[472]
(2) _The Revelation of the Transcendent._—Side by side with this
conception of the transcendence of God, and intimately connected with
it, was the idea of beings or forces coming between God and men. A
transcendent God was in Himself incommunicable: the more the conception
of His transcendence was developed, the stronger was the necessity for
conceiving of the existence of intermediate links.[473]
i. A basis for such a conception was afforded in the popular mythology
by the belief in demons—spirits inferior to the gods, but superior to
men. The belief was probably “a survival of the primitive psychism which
peopled the whole universe with life and animation.”[474] There was an
enormous contemporary development of the idea of demons or genii. They
are found in Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom, Maximus, and Celsus. In the
latter some are good, some bad, most of them of mixed nature; to them is
due the creation of all things except the human soul; they are the rulers
of day and night, of the sunlight and the cold.[475]
ii. A philosophical basis for the theory was afforded by the Platonic
_Ideai_ or Forms, and the Stoical _Logoi_ or Reasons. We have already
seen the place which those Forms, viewed also as Forces, and those
Reasons, viewed also as productive Seeds, filled in the later Greek
cosmologies and cosmogonies. They were not less important in relation
to the theory of the transcendence of God. The Forms according to which
He shaped the world, the Forces by which He made and sustains it, the
Reasons which inhere in it and, like laws, control its movements, are
outflows from and reflexions of His nature, and communicate a knowledge
of it to His intelligent creatures. In the philosophy of Philo, these
philosophical conceptions are combined with both the Greek conception
of Dæmons and the Hebrew conception of Angels. The four conceptions,
Forms, _Logoi_, Dæmons, and Angels, pass into one another, and the
expressions which are relative to them are interchangeable. The most
common expression for them is _Logoi_, and it is more commonly found in
the singular, _Logos_.
(3) _The Distinctions in the Nature of God._—The _Logos_ is able to
reveal the nature of God because it is itself the reflexion of that
nature. It is able to reveal that nature to intelligent creatures because
the human intelligence is itself an offshoot of the Divine. As the eye of
sense sees the sensible world, which also is a revelation of God,[476]
since it is His thought impressed upon matter, so the reason sees the
intelligible world, the world of His thoughts conceived as intelligible
realities, existing separate from Him.
“The wise man, longing to apprehend God, and travelling along
the path of wisdom and knowledge, first of all meets with the
divine Reasons, and with them abides as a guest; but when
he resolves to pursue the further journey, he is compelled
to abstain, for the eyes of his understanding being opened,
he sees that the object of his quest is afar off and always
receding, an infinite distance in advance of him.”[477] “Wisdom
leads him first into the antechamber of the Divine Reason, and
when he is there he does not at once enter into the Divine
Presence; but sees Him afar off, or rather not even afar off
can he behold Him, but only he sees that the place where he
stands is still infinitely far from the unnamed, unspeakable,
and incomprehensible God.”[478]
What he sees is not God Himself but the likeness of Him, “just as those
who cannot gaze upon the sun may yet gaze upon a reflexion of it.”[479]
The _Logos_, reflecting not only the Divine nature, but also the Divine
will and the Divine goodness, becomes to men a messenger of help; like
the angel to Hagar, it brings advice and encouragement;[480] like the
angel who redeemed Jacob (Gen. xlviii. 16), it rescues men from all kinds
of evil;[481] like the angel who delivered Lot from Sodom, it succours
the kinsmen of virtue and provides for them a refuge.[482]
“Like a king, it announces by decree what men ought to do; like
a teacher, it instructs its disciples in what will benefit
them; like a counsellor, it suggests the wisest plans, and so
greatly benefits those who do not of themselves know what is
best; like a friend, it tells many secrets which it is not
lawful for the uninitiated to hear.”[483]
And standing midway between God and man, it not only reflects God
downwards to man, but also reflects man upwards to God.
“It stands on the border-line between the Creator and the
creation, not unbegotten like God, not begotten like ourselves,
and so becomes not only an ambassador from the Ruler to His
subjects, but also a suppliant from mortal man yearning after
the immortal.”[484]
The relation of the _Logos_ to God, as distinguished from its functions,
is expressed by several metaphors, all of which are important in view of
later theology. They may be gathered into two classes, corresponding to
the two great conceptions of the relation of the universe to God which
were held respectively by the two great sources of Philo’s philosophy,
the Stoics and the Platonists. The one class of metaphors belongs to
the monistic, the other to the dualistic, conception of the universe.
In the former, the _Logos_ is evolved from God; in the other, created
by Him.[485] The chief metaphors of the former class are those of a
phantom, or image, or outflow: the _Logos_ is projected by God as a man’s
shadow or phantom was sometimes conceived as thrown off by his body,[486]
expressing its every feature, and abiding as a separate existence after
the body was dead; it is a reflexion cast by God upon the space which He
contains, as a parhelion is cast by the sun;[487] it is an outflow as
from a spring.[488] The chief metaphor of the second class is that of a
son; the _Logos_ is the first-begotten of God;[489] and by an elaboration
of the metaphor which reappears in later theology, God is in one passage
spoken of as its Father, Wisdom as its Mother.[490] It hence tends
sometimes to be viewed as separate from God, neither God nor man, but
“inferior to God though greater than man.”[491] The earlier conception
had already passed through several forms: it had begun with that which
was itself the greatest leap that any one thinker had yet made, the
conception that Reason made the world: the conception of Reason led to
the conception of God as Personal Reason: out of that grew the thought of
God as greater than Reason and using it as His instrument: and at last
had come the conception of the Reason of God as in some way detached
from Him, working in the world as a subordinate but self-acting law. It
was natural that this should lead to the further conception of Reason
as the offspring of God and Wisdom, the metaphor of a human birth being
transferred to the highest sphere of heaven.
B. THE IDEA AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
(1) _The Transcendence of God._—All the conceptions which we have seen
to exist in the sphere of philosophy were reproduced in the sphere
of Christianity. They are sometimes relative to God, in contrast to
the world of sensible phenomena: phenomena come into being, God is
unbegotten and without beginning: phenomena are visible and tangible,
God is unseen and untouched. They are sometimes relative to the idea
of perfection: God is unchangeable, indivisible, unending. He has no
name: for a name implies the existence of something prior to that
to which a name is given, whereas He is prior to all things. These
conceptions are all negative: the positive conceptions are that He is
the infinite depth (βύθος) which contains and embosoms all things, that
He is self-existent, and that He is light. “The Father of all,” said one
school of philosophers,[492] “is a primal light, blessed, incorruptible,
and infinite.” “The essence of the unbegotten Father of the universe is
incorruptibility and self-existing light, simple and uniform.”[493]
From the earliest Christian teaching, indeed, the conception of the
transcendence of God is absent. God is near to men and speaks to them: He
is angry with them and punishes them: He is merciful to them and pardons
them. He does all this through His angels and prophets, and last of all
through His Son. But he needs such mediators rather because a heavenly
Being is invisible, than because He is transcendent. The conception which
underlies the earliest expression of the belief of a Christian community
is the simple conception of children.
“We give Thee thanks, Holy Father, for Thy holy name which Thou
hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and
faith and immortality which Thou hast made known to us through
Jesus Christ, Thy servant. To Thee be glory for ever. Thou,
Almighty Master, hast created all things for Thy name’s sake,
hast given food and drink to men for their enjoyment, that
they may give thanks to Thee: and upon us hast Thou bestowed
spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Thy servant.
Before all things we give Thee thanks for that Thou art mighty:
to Thee be glory for ever.”[494]
In the original sphere of Christianity there does not appear to have been
any great advance upon these simple conceptions. The doctrine upon which
stress was laid was, that God is, that He is one, that He is almighty
and everlasting, that He made the world, that His mercy is over all
His works.[495] There was no taste for metaphysical discussion: there
was possibly no appreciation of metaphysical conceptions. It is quite
possible that some Christians laid themselves open to the accusation
which Celsus brings, of believing that God is only cognizable through
the senses.[496] They were influenced by Stoicism, which denied all
intellectual existences, and regarded spirit itself as material.[497]
This tendency resulted in Adoptian Christology.[498]
But most of the philosophical conceptions above described were adopted
by the Apologists, and through such adoption found acceptance in the
associated Christian communities. They are for the most part stated,
not as in a dogmatic system, but incidentally. For example, Justin
thus protests against a literal interpretation of the anthropomorphic
expressions of the Old Testament:
“You are not to think that the unbegotten God ‘came down’ from
anywhere or ‘went up.’ For the unutterable Father and Lord of
all things neither comes to any place nor walks nor sleeps nor
rises, but abides in His own place wherever that place may be,
seeing keenly and hearing keenly, not with eyes or ears, but
with His unspeakable power, so that He sees all things and
knows all things, nor is any one of us hid from Him: nor does
He move, He who is uncontained by space and by the whole world,
seeing that He was before the world was born.”[499]
And Athenagoras thus sums up his defence of Christianity against the
charge of atheism:
“I have sufficiently demonstrated that they are not atheists
who believe in One who is unbegotten, eternal, unseen,
impassible, incomprehensible and uncontained: comprehended by
mind and reason only, invested with ineffable light and beauty
and spirit and power, by whom the universe is brought into
being and set in order and held firm, through the agency of his
own _Logos_.”[500]
Theophilus replies thus to his heathen interlocutor who asked him to
describe the form of the Christian God:
“Listen, my friend: the form of God is unutterable and
indescribable, nor can it be seen with fleshly eyes: for
His glory is uncontained, His size is incomprehensible, His
loftiness is inconceivable, His strength is incomparable,
His wisdom is unrivalled, His goodness beyond imitation, His
beneficence beyond description. If I speak of Him as light, I
mention His handiwork: if I speak of Him as reason, I mention
His government: if I speak of Him as spirit, I mention His
breath: if I speak of Him as wisdom, I mention His offspring:
if I speak of Him as strength, I mention His might: if I speak
of Him as providence, I mention His goodness: if I speak of
His kingdom, I mention His glory.”[501]
It is not easy to determine in regard to many of these expressions
whether they are relative in the writer’s mind to a supra-cosmic or to a
transcendental conception of God. The case of Tertullian clearly shows
that they are compatible with the former conception no less than with
the latter; for though he speaks of God as “the great Supreme, existing
in eternity, unborn, unmade, without beginning, and without end,”[502]
yet he argues that He is material; for “how could one who is empty have
made things that are solid, and one who is void have made things that are
full, and one who is incorporeal have made things that have body?”[503]
But there were some schools of philosophers in which the transcendental
character of the conception is clearly apparent. The earliest of such
schools, and the most remarkable, is that of Basilides. It anticipated,
and perhaps helped to form, the later developments of Neo-Platonism.
It conceived of God as transcending being. He was absolutely beyond
all predication. Not even negative predicates are predicable of Him.
The language of the school becomes paradoxical and almost unmeaning in
the extremity of its effort to express the transcendence of God, and
at the same time to reconcile the belief in His transcendence with the
belief that He is the Creator of the world. “When there was nothing,
neither material, nor essential, nor non-essential, nor simple, nor
compound, nor unthought, nor unperceived, nor man, nor angel, nor god,
nor absolutely any of the things that are named or perceived or thought,
... God who was not (οὐκ ὢν θεός), without thought, without perception,
without will, without purpose, without passion, without desire, willed
to make a world. In saying ‘willed,’ I use the word only because some
word is necessary, but I mean without volition, without thought, and
without perception; and in saying ‘world,’ I do not mean the extended and
divisible world which afterwards came into being, with its capacity of
division, but the seed of the world.”[504] This was said more briefly,
but probably with the same meaning, by Marcus: There is no conception and
no essence of God.[505]
These exalted ideas of His transcendence, which had especially thriven
on Alexandrian soil, were further elaborated at the end of the second
century by the Christian philosophers of the Alexandrian schools, who
inherited the wealth at once of regenerated Platonism, of Gnosticism, and
of theosophic Judaism. Clement anticipated Plotinus in conceiving of God
as being “beyond the One and higher than the Monad itself,”[506] which
was the highest abstraction of current philosophy.[507] There is no name
that can properly be named of Him: “neither the One, nor the Good, nor
Mind, nor Absolute Being, nor Father, nor Creator, nor Lord.” No science
can attain unto Him; “for all science depends on antecedent principles;
but there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten.”[508] Origen
expressly protests against the conceptions of God which regarded Him as
supra-cosmic rather than transcendent,[509] and as having a material
substance though not a human form.[510] His own conception is that of a
nature which is absolutely simple and intelligent, or which transcends
both intelligence and existence. Being absolutely simple, He has no more
or less, no before or after, and consequently has no need of either space
or time. Being absolutely intelligent, His only attribute is to know and
to be known. But only “like knows like.” He is to be apprehended through
the intelligence which is made in His image: the human mind is capable
of knowing the Divine by virtue of its participation in it. But in the
strict sense of the word He is beyond our knowledge: our knowledge is
like the vision of a spark as compared with the splendour of the sun.[511]
(2) _Revelation or Mediation of the Transcendent._—But as in Greek
philosophy, so also in Christian theology, the doctrine whether of a
supra-cosmic or of a transcendent God necessitated the further question,
How could He pass into the sphere of the phenomenal? The rougher sort
of objectors ridiculed a God who was “solitary and destitute” in his
unapproachable uniqueness:[512] the more serious heathen philosophers
asked, If like knows like, how can your God know the world? and the mass
of Christian philosophers,[513] both within and without the associated
communities, felt this question, or one of the questions that are cognate
to it, to be the cardinal point of their theology.[514]
The tentative answers were innumerable. One early group of them
maintained the existence of a capacity in the Supreme Being to manifest
Himself in different forms. The conception had some elements of Stoical
and some of popular Greek theology, in both of which anthropomorphism
had been possible.[515] It came to an especial prominence in the
earlier stages of the Christological controversies, as an explanation
of the nature of Jesus Christ. It lay beneath what is known as Modal
Monarchianism, the theory that Christ was a temporary mode of the
existence of the one God. It was simply His will to exist in one mode
rather than in another.[516]
“One and the same God,” said Noetus, “is the Creator and Father
of all things, and, because it was His good pleasure, He
appeared to righteous men of old. For when He is not seen He is
invisible, and when He is seen He is visible: He is uncontained
when He wills not to be contained, and contained when He is
contained.... When the Father had not been born, He was rightly
styled Father: when it was His good pleasure to undergo birth,
He became on being born His own son, not another’s.”[517]
But the dominant conception was in a line with that of both Greek
philosophy and Greek religion. From the Supreme God came forth, or in Him
existed, special forms and modifications by which He both made the world
and revealed Himself to it.