Holy Spirit (if this laft was then confidered as a diftinct perfon) were each of them God, in any proper fenfe of the word, there must be more Gods than one. Such geometry as this, I doubt not, gave great offence.

In the following century, viz. the third, we find Noetus, Sabellius, and Paul bifhop of Samofata, the most distinguished among the unitarians. Noetus was of Smyrna, and is said to have been a disciple of Artemon. Sabellius was bishop, or priest, of Cyrene in Africa, in which country the unitarian opinion, as taught by Noetus, is faid to have been generally adopted. It is, indeed, faid by ecclefiaftical historians, that many bishops in this country were brought over to this opinion by Sabellius. But it is much more probable that they held the same opinion before. In that age the prevailing bias was to magnify the perfonal dignity of Chrift, and not to leffen it; fo that we find few or no clear instances of any who, having once maintained, that Christ was either God, or a fuper-angelic being, and the maker of this world under God, came afterwards to believe that he was merely a man. Both Noetus and Sabellius, were charged by their adverfaries with being Patripaffians; but the unitarians of that age afferting, as the unitarians now do, that all the divinity of the Son, was that of the Father refiding in him, and acting by him,

was fufficient to give a handle for that injurious representation of their opinion.

There was nothing peculiar in the doctrine of Sabellius, though he is generally charged with maintaining that there were three perfons in the Trinity, but that these three persons or rather characters (@poowna) were only different names or attributes, of the fame perfon, or being. If this was a fair representation, Sabellius and his followers must have meant to disguise their unitarian fentiments in terms appropriated to the orthodoxy of their age. But though many persons are faid to do this at prefent, Sabellius himself is not charged with it by any of his opponents. On the contrary, he is generally faid to have been a disciple of Noetus. It is therefore probable, as Beaufobre conjectures, that this representation arofe from his adverfaries misapprehending what he faid concerning the Father and the Son being one, and concerning the Father being in him, and doing the works, as our Saviour expresses himself. At the fame time Sabellius might mean nothing more than the most avowed unitarians mean by fuch language at this day.

Paul, bishop of Samofata, a man of genius and learning, but charged with the arrogance and ambition of other bifhops of great fees in thofe times, made himself obnoxious by main

taining

taining the unitarian principles, and was condemned for them in feveral councils held at Antioch, as well as on other accounts. His opinions are acknowledged to have fpread much, and to have alarmed the orthodox greatly*. But when we read of fuch perfons as this bishop making many converts to the doctrine of the humanity of Chrift, I cannot help fufpecting, for the reafon mentioned above, that it is to be understood of the numbers who were before of that opinion, being encouraged by men of their learning, ability, and influence to declare themfelves more openly than they had done before; having been overborne by the philofophizing christians of that age, the current of men's opinions having for some time fet that way. This Paul of Samofata, is reprefented by Ephiphaniust, as alleging, in defence of his doctrine, the words of Mofes, the Lord thy God is one Lord; and he is not charged by him, as others were, with maintaining that the Father fuffered; and indeed from this time we hear no more of that accufation, though the tenets of the unitarians most probably continued the fame.

To these we might add, as falling within the fame century, Beryllus, bifhop of Boftra, in Arabia, said to have been a man of learning and modefty, and to have maintained that Chrift had

Sueur, A. D. 265. † Hær. lxv. Opera, vol. i. p. 608.

no

no being before he was born of the Virgin Mary, and no divinity befides that of the Father refiding in him*. But he is faid to have been converted to the orthodox faith by Origen. It is to be regretted that we have no farther information concerning this bishop and other christians in Arabia. Many of them, we are told, maintained, contrary to the philosophy of their times, that the foul died with the body, and that all men would be in a state of infenfibility from the time of their death to that of the general refurrectiont.

I fhall close this account of the ancient unitarians with juft mentioning Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, though he flourished after the council of Nice; because he is the last of the unitarians we read of till the revival of the doctrine in the laft age. For though it can hardly be fuppofed that the opinion of the fimple humanity of Chrift was wholly extinct, those who maintained it were overborne and filenced by the Trinitarains on the one hand, and the Arians on the other. of the two, the latter were full as hoftile to them as the former. This Photinus is faid to have been a man of great eloquence. He continued in his bishopric notwithstanding his being condemned in three feveral fynods or councils, ef

*Eufebii, Hift. Lib. vi. Cap. xxxiii. p. 297.

+ Ib. Cap. xxxvii. p. 299.

And,

pecially

pecially in one held at Milan, A. D. 345, being extremely popular in his fee; but at length he was expelled by a council held at Sirmium itself in 351. This laft council was called by order of the emperor Conftantius, and confifted chiefly of Arian bishops.

Here I reluctantly bid adieu, to what I apprehend to be the genuine doctrine of the fcriptures concerning the nature of Chrift, but we shall fee it reappear with growing lustre in a later period,

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