remarkable phenomena. The Athanasian doctrine offers to our belief four
objects of thought, to which this word is equally and indifferently
applicable; the Triune Divine Being; and each of the three Persons; and
its advocates profess to have learned from Scripture the well-adjusted
equipoise of these claims upon the great and sacred name. We are hardly
then prepared by its instructions, distinct and emphatic as they are,
for the following fact; allowing every one of the Trinitarian
interpretations to be correct, the word God is used in the New Testament
TEN times of Christ; and of some other object, upwards of THIRTEEN
HUNDRED times.[178] Whence this astonishing disproportion? _Some
cause_,—something corresponding to it in the minds of the writers, it
must have had; nor is it easy to understand, how an equal disposition of
the Divine Persons in the habitual conceptions of the Authors, could
lead to so unequal an award of the grand expression of Divinity.
Even the few instances, which for the moment I have allowed, will
disappear on a nearer examination. This appears to be the proper place
to pass under review the most remarkable passages, which, under
Trinitarian exposition, _appear_ to sanction the doctrine of the proper
Deity of Christ.
(a.) The evangelist Matthew applies to Christ[179] the following words
of the prophet Isaiah, which, in order to give the truest impression of
the original, I will quote from the translation of Bishop Lowth: “Behold
the Virgin conceiveth, and beareth a son; and she shall call his name
Emmanuel.”[180] As this name is significant, and means “God with us,” it
is argued, that it could not be assigned to any one who was not properly
God.
Now even if this name were really assigned by the prophet to Christ, the
most superficial Hebraist must be aware that it teaches us nothing
respecting the nature and person of our Lord. “The fact is
unquestionable,” says Dr. Pye Smith, “that the gratitude or hope of
individuals, in the ancient scriptural times, was often expressed by the
imposition of significant appellations on persons or other objects, in
the composition of which Divine names and titles were frequently
employed; these are, therefore, nothing but short sentences, declarative
of some blessing possessed or expected.”[181] Thus the name _Lemuel_
means _God with them_; _Elijah_, _God the Lord_; _Elihu_, _God is he_.
So that to use the words of one of the ablest of living Trinitarian
writers, “to maintain that the name Immanuel proves the doctrine in
question is a fallacious argument.”[182]
But, in truth, this name is not given to the Messiah by the prophet; and
the citation of it in this connection by the evangelist is an example of
those loose accommodations, or even misapplications, of passages in the
Old Testament by writers in the New, which the most resolute orthodoxy
is unable to deny; and which (though utterly destructive of the theory
of verbal inspiration) the real dignity of the Gospel in no way requires
us to deny. Turning to the original prophecy, and not neglecting the
context and historical facts which illustrate it, we find that Jerusalem
was threatened with instant destruction by the confederated kings of
Syria and Samaria; that, to the terrified Jewish monarch Ahaz, the
prophet is commissioned to promise the deliverance of his metropolis and
ruin to his enemies; that he even fixes the date of this happy reverse;
and that he does this, not in a direct way, by telling the number of
months or years that shall elapse, but by stating that ere a certain
child, either already born, or about to be born within a year, shall be
old enough to distinguish between good and evil, the foe shall be
overthrown; and that this same child, whose infancy is thus
chronologically used, shall eat the honey of a land peaceful and fertile
once more. Nor is this interpretation any piece of mere heretical
ingenuity. Dr. Pye Smith observes: “It seems to be as clear as words can
make it, that the Son promised was born within a year after the giving
of the prediction; that his being so born at the assigned period, was
the sign or pledge that the political deliverance announced to Ahaz
should certainly take place.”[183] Without assenting to the latter part
of this remark, I quote it simply to show that, in the opinion of this
excellent and learned Divine, the Emmanuel could not have been born
_later_ than a year after the delivery of the prophecy. It will
immediately appear that there is nothing to preclude the supposition of
his being already born, at the very time when it was uttered.
Who this child, and who his mother, really were, are questions wholly
unconnected with the present argument. As the _date_, and not the
_person_, was the chief subject of the Prophet’s declaration, any son of
Jerusalem, arriving at years of discretion within the stated time, would
fulfil the main conditions of the announcement; and as a sign of Divine
deliverance, might receive the name Emmanuel. In fact, however, the
child, in the view of Isaiah, seems to have been no other than the
King’s own son, Hezekiah; and the Virgin Mother to have been, in
conformity with a phraseology familiar to every careful reader of the
Old Testament, the royal and holy city of Jerusalem. Amos, speaking of
the city, says, “The virgin of Israel is fallen,”[184] Jeremiah,
lamenting over its desolation, exclaims, “Let mine eyes run down with
tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of
my people is broken, with a great breach, with a very grievous
blow.”[185] Micah, apostrophizing the citadel, bursts out, “O
tower,”—“stronghold of the daughter of Zion,”—“is there no king in thee?
Is thy counsellor perished? For pangs have taken thee, as a woman in
travail.”[186] The fact that Hezekiah was already born, seems to confirm
rather than to invalidate this interpretation. A living child to his
parents, he was yet the city’s embryo king. What sign more fitted to
reassure the terrified and faithless monarch than this; that, ere his
own first-born should reach the years of judgment, his twofold enemy
should be cast down? What language, indeed, could be more natural
respecting an heir to the throne, of whom great expectations were
excited in grievous times? The royal city dreamt of his promised life
with gladness; he was the child of Jerusalem, in the hour of her anguish
given to her hopes; in after years of peace fulfilling them.[187]
(b.) This prince appears evidently to have been the person described
also in another passage, from which, though never cited in the New
Testament as applicable to Christ at all, modern theologians are
accustomed to infer his Deity. It is as follows: “Unto us a child is
born, unto us a son is given; and his name shall be called wonderful;
counsellor; the mighty God; the everlasting Father; the Prince of
Peace.”[188] We have only to look at the terms in which this great one’s
dominion is described, and the characters that are to mark his reign, in
order to assure ourselves that he is some person very different from
Christ; the Northern district of Palestine is to be delivered by him
from the sufferings of an Assyrian invasion; he is to break the yoke
which Tiglath-Pileser had imposed on the land of Gennesareth; to destroy
the rod of the oppressor; to make a conflagration of the spoils of the
battle-field, and burn the greaves and blood-stained garments of his
country’s enemies.[189] It seems to me impossible to imagine a more
violent distortion of Scripture than the application of this passage to
Christ. But, be it even otherwise, there are only two of these titles
which can be thought of any avail in this argument. One is, the
“everlasting Father;” which if it proves anything, establishes that the
second person in the Trinity is the first person, or else that the word
_Father_ must be given up as a distinctive name, a concession
destructive of the whole doctrine. The other is the phrase, “the mighty
God,” or by inversion, “God the mighty;” on which I presume no stress
would have been laid if, instead of being presented to us in a
translation, it had been given in the original, and called GABRIEL. For
the word _God_, Martin Luther substitutes (Held) _hero_, as the juster
rendering.[190] But, in truth, it is sad trifling thus to crumble Hebrew
names to pieces, in order to yield a few scarce visible atoms of
argument to replenish the precarious pile of church orthodoxy, wasted by
the attrition of reason, the healthful dews of nature, and the sunshine
and the air of God.[191]
(c.) Let us turn to the Proem of St. John’s Gospel; that most venerable
and beautiful of all the delineations which Scripture furnishes, of the
twofold relation of Christ’s spirit, to the Father who gave it its
illumination, and to the brethren who were blessed by its light. To our
cold understandings, indeed, this passage must inevitably be obscure;
for it deals with some of the characteristic conceptions of that lofty
speculative reason, which, blending the refinements of Platonism with
the imaginative license of the oriental schools, assumed in early times
the intellectual empire of the church, and has kept the world ever since
in deliberation on its creations. I do not mean that the Apostle was a
Platonist, or a disciple of any philosophical system. But he wrote in
Asia Minor, where he was surrounded by the _influences_, in constant
familiarity with the _terms_, and accustomed to the _modes of thought_,
peculiar to the sects of speculative religionists most prevalent in his
time. At all events, it is _a fact_ that he uses language nowhere
employed by the other Evangelists or Apostles; and that this language is
the very same which is the common stock, and technical vocabulary of
Philo, the Platonizing Jew, and several Christian writers of the same or
a kindred school. Before, however, endeavouring to suggest the idea
which the Apostle did mean to convey, let me call your attention to that
which he did not.
There cannot be a more misplaced confidence, than that with which the
introductory verses of St. John’s Gospel are appealed to by the holders
of the Athanasian doctrine. Whatever explanation is adopted, which does
not throw contempt upon the composition of the Evangelist, is at all
events subversive of their system: and I do not hesitate to say, that
_this_ is the only thing which I can regard as certain respecting this
passage; that _it never could have been written by an Athanasian_. In
order to test this assertion, it is not necessary to look beyond the
first verse; and before we read it, let us allow the Trinitarian to
choose any sense he pleases of the word God, which is its leading term.
Let us suppose that he accepts it as meaning here “THE FATHER,” and that
the Word or Logos means GOD THE SON. With these substitutions the verse
reads thus:—
In the beginning was the Son; and the Son was with the Father; and the
Son was the Father. This surely is to “confound the persons.”
Let us then suppose the meaning different, and the whole Godhead or
TRINITY to be denoted by the word GOD. The verse would then read thus:—
In the beginning was the Son; and the Son was with the Trinity, and the
Son was the Trinity.
We are no nearer to consistency than before: and it is evident that
before the Trinitarian can find in the passage any distinct enunciation,
the term GOD must be conceived to bear two different meanings in this
short verse,—a verse so symmetrical in its construction as to put the
reader altogether off his guard against such a change. He must read it
thus:—
In the beginning was the second person in the Trinity; and the second
person was with the first; and the second person was possessed of divine
attributes as such.
We might surely ask, without unreasonableness, why, when the _society_
or personal affinity of the Son in the Godhead, is mentioned in the
middle clause, the companionship of the _Father only_ is noticed, and
silence observed respecting the _Holy Spirit_; who at that moment could
not possibly have been absent from the conceptions of any Athanasian
writer. But independently of this, the awkwardness of the construction,
the violence of the leading transition of meaning, render the
interpretation altogether untenable. If it be true, never surely was
there a form of speech worse devised for the conveyance of the intended
ideas.
In order to give the passage its true force, there is no occasion to
assign to the word GOD any but its usual signification; as the name of
the One infinite Person or Being who created and rules the universe. But
it is less easy to embrace and exhibit with any distinctness, the notion
implied in the phrase WORD or LOGOS. The ancient speculative schools,
seeing that the Deity had existed from eternity, and therefore in a long
solitude before the origin of creation, distinguished between his
intrinsic nature,—deep, remote, primeval, unfathomable,[192]—and that
portion of his mind which put itself forth, or expressed itself by
works, so as to come into voluntary and intelligible relations to
men.[193] This section of the Divine Mind, to which was attributable the
authorship of the divine works, they called the LOGOS, or the IMAGE of
God; both terms denoting the _expression_ or _power which outwardly
reveals_ internal qualities; the one taking its metaphor from the _ear_,
through which we make known our sentiments by speech; the other from the
_eye_, to which is addressed the natural language of feature and
lineament. If I might venture on an illustration which may sound
strangely to modern hearers, I should say that the Logos was conceived
of in relation to God, much as with us _Genius_ is, in relation to the
soul of its possessor; to denote that peculiar combination of
intellectual and moral attributes, which produces great, original,
creative works,—works which let you into the spirit and affections, as
well as the understanding, of the Author. Any one who can so possess
himself with the speculative temper of Christian antiquity, as to use
with reverence the phrase _genius of God_, would find it, I am
persuaded, a useful English substitute (though I am well aware, not a
perfect equivalent) for the word Logos. Dwelling within the blank
immensity of God, was this illuminated region of Divine ideas; in which,
as in the fancy and the studio of an artist, the formative conceptions,
the original sketches and designs, the inventive projects of beauty and
good, shaped and perfected themselves; and from which they issued forth,
to imprint themselves upon matter and life, and pass into executed and
visible realities. From the energy of this creative spirit, or blessed
genius of God, two very different orders of results were conceived to
flow:—the forms and symmetrical arrangements of the material universe,
by which, as by the engraving of a seal, Deity stamped his perfections
into _vision_: and the intuitions of pure reason and conscience in the
human soul, by which, as by a heavenly tone or vibration, Deity thrilled
himself into _consciousness_. And when I say _Deity_, I mean the _Logos
of Deity_; for this alone, it was conceived, stood in any relation to
us; the rest was an unexpressed and unfathomable Essence.
This portion of the Divine Infinitude was incessantly and vividly
personified; so as to assume, even in the writings of the Jew and
undoubted Monotheist Philo, the frequent aspect of a second God: though
scarcely have you taken up this idea from one series of passages, before
you are recalled and corrected by others, clearly showing that this is a
false impression, too hastily derived from the intensity of the imagery
and language. Indeed the distinction between a mere personification and
a positive mythological personage is very faint. When a writer
personifies an abstraction, _for the moment_ he conceives of this object
of thought as a person; and were this state of mind perpetuated, he
would _believe_ it to be a person. But his mental attitude changes; and
in a less excited hour, that which had constructed and painted itself
almost into a being, fades away again into an attribute. Hence the
fluctuation of writers, at once imaginative and speculative, like Philo
and some of the early Christian Fathers, between the logical and the
mythical method of speaking of the properties of the Divine nature. And
it may be remarked, that the Apostle John partook, though in a very
slight degree, of the same tendency. He was fond of abstract words:
calling our Saviour the _way_, rather than the _guide_; the _truth_,
rather than the _teacher_; the _light_, rather than the _illuminator_;
and so I conceive, in the commencement of his Gospel, the _inspiration_,
rather than the _inspired_ of God. And then, as if to remedy the
indistinctness of this mode of representation, he resorts to
personification: thus, at the dictation of his reverence, first reducing
the living person to an abstraction; and afterwards, at the bidding of
his imagination, recreating the abstraction into a person. The extent to
which this personification may be carried, by an author who certainly
had no notion but of One personal God, may be estimated from a few
sentences, referring to this very conception of the Logos, from the
Jewish Philo. The invisible and intellectual Logos, he says, is the
image of God, by whom the world was fashioned; his first-born son, his
vicegerent in the government of the world; the mediator between God and
his creatures; the healer of ills; God’s divine Son, whose mother is
wisdom. In another place, the Logos is the very same with the wisdom of
God; the most ancient angel, the first-born of God; to the resemblance
of whom every one, who would be a son of God, must fashion himself. He
is even the “second God,” “To the Archangel, and most ancient Logos,”
says this writer, “God granted this distinguished office, that he should
stand on the confines of creation, and separate between it and its
Creator. With the incorruptible being he is the suppliant for perishable
mortality. He is the ambassador of the Supreme to the subject creation.
He announces the will of the Ruler to his subjects. And he delights in
the office, and boasts of it, saying; I had stood between you and the
Lord as mediator; being neither unbegotten as God, nor begotten as you,
but between the two extremes, and acting as hostage to both,”[194] All
this sounds very mysterious; the important thing to bear in mind is,
that the writer is certainly speaking not of any separate divine person,
but of the impersonated attributes of One Sole Supreme.
St. John then, I conceive, does the very same; only he carefully warns
us against thinking of his personification as otherwise than identical
with the Supreme, by saying outright, that the Logos is God; and
therefore that whatever he may say about the former, is really to be
understood as spoken of the latter. The whole proem divides itself into
two ideas: that from the Genius or Logos of God have proceeded two sets
of divine works; the material world; and the soul and inspiration of
heaven shed upon the world through Christ. His object, I believe, is to
link together these two effects as successive and analogous results,
physical in one case, spiritual in the other, of the same divine and
holy energy. Having warned us, as I have said, in the very first verse,
that this energy is not really a person distinct from the Supreme, he
abandons himself without reserve to the beautiful personification which
follows; assuring us that thereby were all things made at first, and
thereby were all men being enlightened now; that our very world, which
felt that forming hand of old, had not discerned the blessed influence
which again descended to regenerate it: ungrateful treatment! as of one
who came unto his own, and his own received him not. Yet were there some
of more perceptive conscience and better hearts; and they, be they Jew
or Gentile, whose spirits sprung to the divine embrace, were permitted
to become, by reflected similitude, the Sons of God.
Thus far, that is, to the end of the thirteenth verse, there is no
mention of Jesus Christ as an individual; there is only the unembodied
personification of the abstract energy of God in the original design,
and the newer regeneration of the world. Nor should there be any
difficulty in this separation of the Divine Spirit from its positive and
personal results. Of the _Creative_ Mind of God we can easily think, as
not only prior to the act of creation, but still apart from the forms of
matter; and so can we of the _illuminating or regenerative_ Mind of God,
as not only prior to its manifestation in Christ, but apart from its
embodiment in his person. In the next verse, however, the heavenly
personification is dropped upon the man Jesus; the mystic divine light
is permitted to sink into the deeps of his humanity; it vanishes from
separate sight: and there comes before us, and henceforth lives within
our view throughout the Gospel, the Man of Sorrows, the Child of God,
with the tears and infirmities of our mortal nature, and the moral
perfection of the Divine. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the
Father), full of grace and truth.”[195]
(d.) The spirit of this exposition is directly applicable to another
passage, adduced to prove the deity of Christ: “God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the
Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”[196] It is
well known that in the most approved text, the word _God_ does not
exist, and the passage reads, “He who was manifest in the flesh,” &c.
Were it permitted to indulge personal wishes in such matters, I could
desire that the common rendering were the true one. I know of no more
exact description of Christ, than that he was a living and human
manifestation of the character of God.[197]
(e.) Let us now turn to the introductory verses of the Epistle to the
Hebrews; a passage which is claimed as the clearest disclosure of the
Deity of Christ; for no discoverable reason, except that from its great
obscurity, it _reveals_ less, perhaps, than any other portion of
Scripture, except the _Revelations_. From the earliest times it has been
justly regarded as exceedingly doubtful whether the Apostle Paul was the
author of this letter; the difficulties and darkness of which are of a
very different character from those which embarrass us in his noble
writings, and arise from mental habits far more artificial and less
healthy than his. But whatever be the authority of this work, and
whatever the doctrine of its introductory portion, it is so far from
giving any support to the Trinitarian sentiments, that it affords, even
in its most exalted language, arguments sufficient to disprove them. The
first verses of the epistle, altered slightly from the common
translation, in order to exhibit more faithfully the meaning of the
original, are as follows:—
“God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past
unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, at the close of these days,
spoken unto us by his Son; whom he hath appointed heir of all things;
through whom also he made the ages of the world; who, being the
brightness of his glory, and the image of his nature, and ruling all
things by the word of his power, having by himself made purification of
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; being
become so much greater than the angels, as he hath obtained by
inheritance a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the
angels said he at any time, ‘thou art my son; I have this day begotten
thee?’ And again, ‘I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a
Son.’ And when ever he may again introduce his first-born into the
world, it (_i.e._ the Scripture) saith, ‘let all the angels of God pay
homage to him.’ And with reference to the angels, it saith, ‘who maketh
his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.’ But with
reference to the son, it saith, ‘thy throne, O God! is for ever and
ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom; thou
hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, O God! thy God
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’”
I terminate the quotation here, because I do not believe that the
following words have any relation to Christ. The writer’s argument not
only admits, but requires, that they should be referred to the supreme
God and Father of all.