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Tertullian said:
"The heathen poets and philosophers stole many of their notions from the Holy
Scriptures" and then, because these men were unregenerate, the spiritual meaning of
much which they took escaped them, and the consequent distortion of teaching followed.
"If they found anything in our divine digests which hit their fancies, or might serve
their hypothesis, they took it and turned it and bent it to a compliance with their own
curiosity."
"Having dipped into the Holy Scripture, and found there is no God but one, they
presently divided into various speculations about the Divine nature."
Some thirty or more heretics are known by name, who arose during the first five
centuries of Christianity and put forward a mixture of Scripture phraseology and
metaphysical speculation concerning the Trinity which persists to this day, by reason of
the incorporation of the Creeds into Church Service. When these heresies are examined,
it will be found that many of them are concerned with the problem of the persons of the
Father and the Son, and the argument is further be-clouded by the continual assumption
that when we intend God in Absolute and Unconditional Infinity, we must refer to Him as
"The Father".
Arius, who gives his name to the `heresy' called Arianism, endeavoured to substitute
rational ideas about the Trinity in place of the mysticism that surrounded the subject.
When he raised the question of the `external existence of the Son' if only someone could
have done for him as Priscilla and Aquila did for Apollos, and have made him to see the
Word of God more perfectly; if only someone had pointed out that where Arius and his
opponents used the title `Son' the Scriptures used the title `Word', Arianism may never
have seen the light of day, and the mysticism against which Arius raised his voice may
not have dominated the thought of centuries.
Another sect were called the Monarchians. The name is derived from monos `alone'
and archo `to govern'. The Monarchians exhibited a praiseworthy zeal in endeavouring
to preserve the unity of the consciousness of God, but as they denied any other divine
Being than "The Father", they eventually rejected and misunderstood the Scriptural
teaching concerning the Logos, and so would give a hesitating approval of the teaching of
such a passage as Phil. 2: 10, 11. In their view every knee could only bow to the Father,
Who in their estimate, was God alone.
Again Sabellius taught that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are only manifestations of
the same Person. Had he maintained that the Trinity was the manifestation of one God,
he might have led the church into fuller light. As it was he so confused the Father and
the Son, and further confused the One God with the word "Person" that he ultimately
taught that it was the Father that suffered for sin! How many heresies developed because
one side sought to defeat the other in controversy, instead of sympathetically seeking to
sift the chaff from the wheat in both sets of argument, only the Judgment Seat of Christ
will reveal.
Let us note two benedictions from Scripture, both of which are cast in the triple form.