human race, selected from the rest of mankind as a prophet of God, distinguished from all other prophets by the importance of his doctrine, the frequency and splendour of his miraculous works, and, above all, by his resurrection from the dead. This is the opinion which all would naturally entertain concerning Christ, till they were further instructed in the sublime doctrines of his pre-existence and divinity.

To modern christians, who, from habit and association, read the books of the New Testament as if they had been composed by one person, or by a few persons writing in concert, the difficulty seldom occurs of accounting for the omission of the doctrines of the pre-existence and divinity of Jesus Christ by the majority of the writers, and particularly by three out of four of the historians of his life. But to the ancients, who were more familiar with the idea that these books were written at different times, in different places, with different views, by different authors, and for different churches, the objection occurred in its full force; and they could find no better solution of the difficulty than by ascribing this extraordinary omission to" the prudent caution," and "praiseworthy timidity8," of the apostles and evangelists, in not divulging a doctrine so offensive to the Jews, and so dangerous to the Gentiles 9. These reasons, though perhaps the best that could be offered, will not satisfy a modern inquirer: but the

μετα πολλής της συνέσεως.” Athanasius. δι' επαινεμένην δειλιαν.” Chrysostom.

p.

125.

9 See p. 244, note; also p. 245. Origen says, "John alone introduced the knowledge of the eternity of Christ." Opp. vol. ii. p. 428. -Eusebius says, "John began the doctrine of the divinity of Christ." Hist. lib. iii. c. 24.-See Dr. Priestley, Hist. Early Op. vol. iii. 127. "The apostle does not speak plainly concerning the deity of Christ, because polytheism abounded, and lest he should be thought to introduce many gods." Theophylact in 1 Tim. ii. 5.-See Priestley, ibid. book iii. chap. vi.

fact

fact remains the same. The doctrine of Christ's pre-existence and divinity was not taught plainly till the apostle John wrote his gospel, which Lardner places A. D. 68, and Jones and others later than A. D. 90.10 But what the apostles did not teach, the first christians did not believe. The christian church therefore must have been Unitarian, at least till the apostle John wrote his gospel.

But there is no evidence that any change took place in the sentiments of the great body of christians in consequence of the publication of St. John's gospel. He is said by Irenæus to have written against the Gnostics, and by Origen, and others who came after him, to have written against the Ebionites also 11. That the apostle wrote with much indignation and asperity against the former is manifest. Against the Docetæ, a sect of Gnostics who taught that Jesus was indeed the Christ, but that he was a man in appearance only, and not in reality, the apostle writes, 1 John iv. 3, "Every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," i. e. who confesses that Jesus is the Christ, but who denies that he is a real man, "is not of God. It is the spirit of antichrist." And against those Gnostics who acknowledged Jesus to be a real man, but who denied him to be the Christ, maintaining that Christ was one of the celestial Æons or emanations, who descended into Jesus at his baptism, but deserted him at his crucifixion, the apostle writes, 1 John ii. 22, "Who is a liar, but he who denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" No such language as this is to be found in the writings of this apostle concerning the Unitarians. And the supposition that John wrote the introduction to his gospel against the Ebionites, or Unitarians, is clearly confuted by the fact that the expression "in the beginning," which introduces the gospel

10 Lardner's Hist. of Evang. vol. i. p. 387. 389. ed. i. "See Priestley, ibid. book i. chap. iii. sect. 5, 6; also vol. iii.

P. 124.

of

of John, signifies almost uniformly in the apostle's writings, not the beginning of time, but the beginning of the gospel dispensation. But as it is conceded that Unitarians abounded in the apostolic age; if John did not write against them, it is highly probable that he agreed with them for few trinitarians will now deny that the heresy of the Ebionites was at least as dangerous, and as deserving of animadversion, as that of the Gnostics. And so no doubt would the apostle have thought, had he believed the present popular doctrine concerning the person of Christ.

The ancient Unitarians always maintained that theirs was the prevailing doctrine in the church till the time of Victor bishop of Rome, about A. D. 200, who excommunicated Theodotus of Byzantium, a learned Unitarian. This assertion of the Unitarians is contradicted, but not disproved, by Eusebius and others".

The early Unitarians being the mass of believers, few of whom were philosophers and speculative men, had not many writers among them, and few of their works are now extant 18. All that we know of them is from the writings of their adversaries. It is however certain that they abounded in the apostolic age; and that they long constituted a very large proportion, and probably even the majority, of believers, may be reasonably inferred from their having no appropriate name; also from their not having been excommunicated like the Gnostics, and branded as heretics, which they certainly would have been if Arians or Trinitarians had at that time possessed the ascendancy. The respect with which they are mentioned

1 Euseb. Hist. lib. v. cap. 28. Priestley, ibid. book iii. chap. xv. § 1. 15 The Clementine Homilies, supposed to be written about the time of Justin Martyr, are the production of an Unitarian, and are almost the only Unitarian treatise of ecclesiastical antiquity now extant. See Priestley, ibid. vol. i. p. 113.

by

of

by Justin Martyr, the first who taught the divinity of the Logos, plainly indicates that their numbers were not to be despised. In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, his opponent says: "This doctrine,-that Christ was a God existing before the ages, and then born a man,-is not only extraordinary, but ridiculous." Justin replies: "I know that this doctrine appears strange, and especially to those your race (Jews): but it will not follow that he is not the Christ, though I should not be able to prove that he pre-existed as God, and that he became a man by the Virgin. It will be right to say that in this only I have been mistaken; and not that he is not the Christ, though he should appear to be a man born as other men are, and to be made Christ by election. For there are some of our race (Gentiles) who acknowledge him to be Christ, but hold that he was a man born like other men. With them I do not agree, nor should I do so, though ever so many being of the same opinion should urge it upon me 14; because

14 66

Οἷς, 8 συντιθεμαι, εδ' αν πλείσοι, ταυτα μοι δοξασαντες, ειποιεν. Quibus ego non assentior, neque, etiamsi multo plures essent, assentirer." Thirlby, p. 235, not.-"To whom I could not yield my assent; no, not even if the majority of christians should think the same: Badcock, in the Monthly Rev. for June 1783, who considers it as a declaration that the majority of christians coincided in opinion with Justin himself "To whom I do not assent, though the majority may have told me that they had been of the same opinion:" Mr. Cappe, who in his vindication of Dr. Priestley contends, that the words properly express that the majority of christians held opinions contrary to those of the writer.--At any rate, and whatever be the meaning of Justin, how different the language of this virtuous and candid, though mistaken writer, from that of the angry opponents of the same doctrine in modern times! "If your opinion is true," said one of Dr. Priestley's early and zealous antagonists, "I will throw my Bible into the fire." But what says the venerable martyr in a similar case?" If your doctrine be true, it only follows that I am mistaken as to the preexistence and deity of Jesus; but he is still the Christ, though he became so only by election." What occasions this remarkable difference between Mr. Venn and Justin Martyr? The true reason is this: Mr. Venn wrote in an age when Trinitarianism was triumphant, and Unitarianism in disgrace; Justin Martyr wrote at a time when Unitari

$ 2

anism

because we are commanded by Christ himself not to obey the teachings of men, but what was taught by the holy prophets and himself." This is plainly the language of one who wishes to conciliate regard to a novel and offensive opinion, which might possibly be erroneous; and not of one who advocates the cause of a triumphant majority.

The testimony of Origen, who wrote in the beginning of the third century, to the proper Unitarianisin of the body of Jewish christians in his time, is direct and full. "The word Ebion," says he, "in the Jewish language signifies poor and those of the Jews who believe Jesus to be the Christ are called Ebionites." And in his Commentary upon Matthew, he introduces a distinction among the Jews who believed in Christ; "some thinking him to be the son of Joseph and Mary, and others of Mary only and the divine Spirit, but not believing his divinity." And in another passage he speaks of the Ebionites of both sorts, as not receiving the Epistles of Paul 55.

Eusebius, who wrote a century afterwards, confirms the testimony of Origen concerning the Ebionites. "Those by the ancients called Ebionites, think meanly," says he, "concerning Christ: for they think him to be merely a

anism was held in honour, and the pre-existence and divinity of Christ were novel and obnoxious opinions. After all, I must confess that I am not quite satisfied with any one of the translations of these learned writers. The true version of this celebrated passage appears to me to be the following: "With whom I do not agree: nor should I, even though the majority, who are of the same opinion with me, ταύτα μοι δοξασαντες, had affirmed it.”. • Ταυτα δοξάζειν αλληλοις, eandem habere opinionem." Xenoph. ap. Constantin. Lex. in Verb. -It is probable that Justin here particularly alludes to the fact of the miraculous conception, which was at that time pretty generally credited by the Gentile christians. And this was the subject last mentioned, that Christ was a man born as other men. He can hardly be supposed to refer to the pre-existence and divinity of the Logos, which he had just acknowledged to be a strange doctrine, Tapadogos o λoyos, both to Jewish and Gentile believers, though principally to the former. Origen in Cels. lib. ii. p. 56. Comm, in Matt. vol. i. p. 427. Edit. Huet. in Cels. lib. vi. p. 274. Priestley, ibid. vol. iii. p. 166.

15

man