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Untitled Article
propriety be discharged by a minister of God , and it was therefore assigned to the logos . In order to fulfil its duties , the logos must of course assume a personal shape . And thus Philo ' s doctrine was completed . The logos , being an attribute of God , was occasionally sent forth in a personal form , and when its duties were discharged it was taken back into the bosom of Deity , its assumed form having : been laid aside .
From Alexandria this heathenish fiction invaded the church of Christ . Most of the early fathers studied in its schools . There they received the infection of mystery , which , when placed in stations of influence in the church , they laboured but with too much success to spread through the minds of the faithful . The first idea that they advanced was , that Jesus was a divine attribute . To gain currency for such a notion would , in an a ge when reason
was feeble and mysticism prevalent , require no long time or considerable effort . In the Scriptures the Saviour is set forth as having received from God , wisdom , power , and love , and the transition was not very difficult , that he was that wisdom , power , and love . To aid the change , recourse was had to that peculiarity
of the Hebrew tongue , in the spirit of which the New Testament is written , which makes into a person almost everything possessed of active power . The logos then , it was contended , was not merely an attribute but a person of God , and in consequence , Jesus , who was the logos , was God . At this conclusion the minds of the many revolted . They thought , and justly , that this was to introduce two Gods . The abettors of mystery contended that the consequence did not follow—since the Father was superior to the Son . The Unitarians , however , were not to be thus bewildered . One God might be inferior to the other—still two were made to exist . Long did the struggle last . The corrupters themselves were not agreed . Many of them continued throughout the second century to maintain that the logos was nothing more than an attribute of the Father and placed in the man
Christ Jesus . Those who went farther , and ascribed a proper personality to the logos , were not always consistent with themselves . Even Justin Martyr speaks more than once of the logos as an attribute . Amidst this diversity the bulk of the people remained attached to apostolical purity , and earnestly opposed the doctrine of two Gods .
Justin Martyr is the first writer in whom we meet with a distinct assertion of the doctrine of the pre-existence and deity of Christ . In Clement of Rome , his predecessor , no trace of the doctrine we have seen , is to be found . And the apologetic tone in " which Justin proposes the doctrine—the gentle manner in which he speaks of the Unitarians—believers as they were -in the proper humanity of Christ—his implied admission that the doctrine which he propounded was not essential to make a man a Christianhis implied doubt of his ability to establish that doctrine—the very
Untitled Article
26 Q Rise and Progress of the Doctrine of the Trinity .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 260, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/44/
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