Part 2 of this series on monarachianism will focus on the following question:
Was monarchianism the majority view in the second and early/middle third century?
The ‘roots’ of the above question that has become somewhat popular amongst some 20th and 21st century scholars is uncovered by Waers in the early pages of his dissertation; note the following:
Harnack produced a number of accounts of monarchianism that shaped discourse for much of the twentieth century. Harnack’s division of monarchianism into two main streams, modalistic and dynamistic, has become a scholarly commonplace. Harnack’s account is colored by his overarching assumption that the speculative theology of the learned Logos theologians was at odds with the simple faith of the uneducated masses. He proposed that it was this opposition between the learned theologians and the simple laity that gave rise to the monarchian controversy and that monarchianism was an attempt to protect the pure faith against the intrusion of speculation which derived from Hellenistic philosophy. (Page 7)
Waers in his section on Tertullian, provides a quote that is utilized by Harnack and other folk who maintain that monarchiaism was the majority position in the early/middle 3rd century:
This monarchian interpretation of the oneness of God was particularly appealing for those whom Tertullian calls simple folks. For Tertullian, claims about the oneness of God must be balanced by assertions about the plurality of God in the economy, a balance that Tertullian’s simplices seem unable to achieve. Tertullian states, “Simple people… not understanding that while they must believe in one only <God> yet they must believe in him along with his economy, shy at the economy.” (Page 139)*
Now, to extrapolate from the above that the “simple faith" of the simplices mentioned by Tertullian was the same as the actual faith of the monarchians of the second and early/middle third century is dubious, and unproven. Later on, Waers exposes some of the weaknesses of such a view:
Despite its notable influence in the early-third-century church, it is difficult to sustain claims that monarchianism was the majority position in the church, or something like an early-third-century orthodoxy. Reinhard Hübner is the most recent proponent of this theory, and he suggests that monarchianism was the overwhelming majority position in Christianity until the middle of the third century. Hübner’s theory is built upon a number of suppositions, the most problematic of which requires a revisionist reading of virtually all second-century theology and a revisionist chronology of some major figures. (Page 203)
And:
All of the extant accounts of monarchianism that I have studied thus far have shown that the explicit identification of the Father and Son was at the core of monarchian theology. The absence of such strong statements about the Father and Son being identical in second-century texts is an insurmountable obstacle for Hübner’s theory. Were Noetus as influential as Hübner contends, one would surely find this central aspect of his teaching mirrored in those writers who allegedly relied on him. It is more probable that Noetus’ antithetical statements about God were drawing on traditional ways of speaking about God in Asia Minor. He added to this traditional phraseology the monarchian postulate, that the Father and the Son are one and the same.
Once Hübner’s assertions in favor of an early date for Noetus have been problematized, his theories about monarchianism as the overwhelming majority position until the mid-third century lose their firm basis. There is evidence that monarchianism gained a strong following in Rome at the beginning of the third century. However, there is scarcely enough information to determine the extent to which monarchianism was adopted in other regions. (Pages 205, 206)
Should have part 3 up later this week, the Lord willing…
Grace and peace,
David
*Full context of Tertullian quote HERE.
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The following is the entire chapter (#3) from Tertullian’s treatise on Praxeas, containing the “simple people” quote provided by Waers in the opening post:
>>3. For all the simple people, that I say not the thoughtless and ignorant (who are always the majority of the faithful), since the Rule of the Faith itself brings over from the many gods of the world to the one only true God, not understanding that while they must believe in one only yet they must believe in him along with his economy, shy at the economy. They claim that the plurality and ordinance of trinity is a division of unity - although a unity which derives from itself a trinity is not destroyed but administered by it. And so put it about that by us two or even three are preached, while they, they claim, are worshippers of one God - as though unity irrationally summed up did not make heresy and trinity rationally counted out constitute truth. "We hold", they say, "to the monarchy": and even Latins so expressively frame the sound, and in so masterly a fashion, that you would think they understood monarchy as well as they pronounce it: but while Latins are intent to shout out "monarchy", even Greeks refuse to understand the economy. But if I have gathered any small knowledge of both languages, I know that monarchy indicates neither more nor less than a single and sole empire, yet that monarchy because it belongs to one man does not for that reason make a standing rule that he whose it is may not have a son or must have made himself his own son or may not administer his monarchy by the agency of whom he will. Nay more, I say that no kingdom is in such a sense one man's own, in such a sense single, in such a sense a monarchy, as not to be administered also through those other closely related persons whom it has provided for itself as officers and if moreover he whose the monarchy is has a son, it is not ipso facto divided, does not cease to be a monarchy, if the son also is assumed as partner in it, but it continues to belong in first instance to him by whom it is passed on to the son: and so long as it is his, that continues to be a monarchy which is jointly held by two who are so closely united. Therefore if also the divine monarchy is administered by the agency of so many legions and hosts of angels (as it is written, Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him and thousand thousands ministered unto him),1 yet has not therefore ceased to belong to one, so as to cease to be a monarchy because it has for its provincial governors so many thousand authorities, how should God be thought, in the Son and in the Holy Spirit occupying second and third place, whilethey are to such a degree conjoint of the Father's substance, to experience a division and a dispersion such as he does not experience in the plurality of all those angels, alien as they are from the Father's substance? Do you account provinces and family connexions and officials and the very forces and the whole trappings of empire to be the overthrow of it? You are wrong if you do. I prefer you to busy yourself about the meaning of a fact rather than the sound of a word. Overthrow of monarchy you should understand as when there is superimposed another kingship of its own character and its own quality, and consequently hostile, when another god is introduced to oppose the Creator, as with Marcion, or many gods according to people like Valentinus and Prodicus : then is it for the overthrow of the monarchy when it is for the destruction of the Creator.>> (Against Praxeas – English trans., Erenst Evans)
Grace and peace,
David
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