Scripture and God in Christianity

elieved even of the Son of God, had they not been written; perhaps they could have not believed
of the Father even had they been written. For these persons bring him down into Mary's womb,
place him at Pilot's tribunal, and shut him in the tomb of Joseph. Hence their error becomes evident....Thus
they believe that it was always one God, the Father, who did the things which were
really done through the Son." 532 God's transcendence and ineffability was at stake, so the defenders
of orthodoxy except Zephyrinus, the bishop of Rome, condemned this group of Monarchians
as heretics. Then formally, in the sixth-century Synod of Braga orthodoxy decreed that "If anyone
does not confess that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three persons of one essence
and virtue and power, as the catholic apostolic church teaches, but says that [they are] a single
and solitary person, in such a way that the Father is the same as the Son and this One is also the
Paraclete Spirit, as Sabellius and Priscillian have said, let him be anathema." 533 In order to preserve
God's transcendence and stability, observes Urban, "Trinitarians were ready to give up the
divine simplicity. Trinitarians assert that, although God is one and simple in most respects, there
are some in which he is Triune." 534
The Monarchian anthropomorphic position has continued to crop up even after its condemnation.
For through-out Christian history " men have been frequently condemned for denying the deity of
Christ but rarely for denying the distinction between the Father and the Son. To deny the former
has generally seemed unchristian; to deny the latter only unintelligent." 535
In spite of strong opposition, Modalism or the crystal clear anthropomorphic concept of God remained
widespread, especially among the simpleminded and ordinary Christians. It was shared,
as observes McGiffert, "by the majority of the common people and was in harmony with the
dominant piety of the age. "What harm am I doing in glorifying Christ?" was the question of Noetus
and in it he voiced the sentiment of multitudes." 536
Dynamic Monarchianism:
Meanwhile, another kind of Monarchianism became current both in the East and West and took
the question of Jesus' relationship with God to the other extreme. In the west Theodotus (c. 190
C.E.), the leather-worker, who was afterwards "characterized as the "founder, leader, and father
of the God-denying revolt," (adoptionism), 537 taught regarding the Person of Christ, "that Jesus
was a man, who, by a special decree of God, was born of a virgin through the operation of the
Holy Spirit; but that we were not to see in him a heavenly being, who had assumed flesh in the
virgin. After the piety of his life had been thoroughly tested, the Holy Ghost descended upon him
in baptism; by this means he became Christ and received his equipment...for his special vocation;
and he demonstrated the righteousness, in virtue of which he excelled all men, and was, of necessity,
their authority. Yet the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus was not sufficient to justify the contention
that he was now "God"." 538 Such an understanding of Jesus, observes Urban, "preserved
the simplicity of God, but at the price of unfaithfulness to the tradition." 539
In the East this movement was significantly revived under the leadership of Paul of Samosata, the
bishop of Antioch, the capital of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra's kingdom. There, says Fisher, "he
exercised an authority almost equivalent to that of a viceroy." 540 He propounded a peculiar form
of dynamic theory by opposing the already dominant doctrine of the essential natural deity of
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