Historically viewed then, the early Christians believed without any doubts in the incarnation on the basis of a synthesis of proofs derived from Christ's personality, his moral spotlessness and force, his miracles, his Messianic claims, his resurrection and their own experience of his forgiving and renewing power, and not on the basis of the virgin birth, which is never mentioned outside the opening chapters of Luke and Matthew. This teaching, however, was welcomed by men, who believed the fact of the incarnation, as an explanation of its method, and is accepted by most believers to-day in the same relation. It is therefore not essential to the teaching of the incarnation, which might have taken place in other ways, but is the gospel-given history of the method adopted by God to bring the incarnation about, and, logi cally considered, it is burdened by no more difficulties than any other possible method would probably be. It does not appear im probable to those who already believe in the incarnation. The historicity of the virgin birth has recently been keenly attacked on the most diverse grounds, principally by those who elim inate the supernatural. Its defenders are taking the position that though the reports of it were late in being disclosed, as shown by absence of mention of it in the rest of the New Testa ment, they are in fact the most archaic Chris tian documents. In support of this, they point to the Aramaic coloring of the narratives; their Hebrew background; their primitive Christian viewpoint; their simplicity, beauty and delicacy; the reasons which immediately suggest themselves why such a story should be withheld till Jewish opposition had decreased, and the principal actors had passed from the stage; and their inexplicability on any other hypothesis than their truth.
II. The Church The New Tes tament fails to give any answer to the questions of the exact relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of the manner in which the divine and the human in Christ were related to each other, and these matters formed the sub ject of the first great theological controversy, during which the teaching of the incarnation was defined and developed principally in opposi tion to misapprehensions of it by different par ties and individuals within the Church.
(a) The earliest were the nearly opposite errors, Ebionitism (see Einomiss) and Docet ism (see Doczr.,E), both of which began in the 1st century and flourished during the 2d. The Ebionites were a sect of Jewish Christians who held that Jesus was naturally born, was merely a prophet, received an extraordinary en dowment of the Spirit at his baptism, and was finally exalted to Lordship at his resurrection. It was merely Judaism in semi-Christian dress; against it the Fathers asserted the full teaching of the incarnation, and it soon passed away.
.(b) Gnosticism (q.v.), which started with the assumption of the inherent evil of matter, almost necessarily drifted into Docetism, the doctrine that Christ could have no real relation to matter, that his body was merely apparent, a vision and delusion, or at least of a spiritual nature different from a human body, and not subject to suffering and death. This view was
held in different forms and was shared also by Manichmism. (See MANIcHASwxS). It is a prac tical denial of the possibility of the union of the divine and the human. Docetism was very early. It seems to be opposed in 1 John iv, 2, and 2 John vii. The apocryphal Gospel of Peter, discovered in 1886, is Docetic. It was attacked by Ignatius. The fathers met it by an insistence on the real humanity of Christ. After large in fluence, it passed away with Gnosticism. Justin Martyr, Irennus, Clement of Alexandria, Ori gen and Tertullian were the principal theo logians who defended and developed the teach ing of the Church during this period.
(c) With Sabellianism (see Mori...wawa, SABELLIUS) condemned in 262, began the real contest. Sabellius urged that the Trinity is not a trinity of persons in one substance, but merely three different or successive forms of the reve lation of the one person. Christ was pre-exist ent because the one person persisted under the change of revelation-form. The Patripassians were Sabellian, who logically asserted that it was the Father who suffered on the cross. Sabellianism, variously modified, has constantly reappeared, and is now known as the doctrine of a modal Trinity. The controversy with Sabellianism did much to sharpen the definition of the Church.
(d) The greatest battle over the teaching of the incarnation was brought on by Arius (see ARIANISM; Alums), a presbyter of Alexandria, about 318. Arius held that Christ was a pre existent divine being, but of a different essence from the Father (heteroousios), created by the Father out of nothing but himself the creator of the world, and the incarnate Saviour. The Semi-Arians taught that Christ was not of a different essence from the Father, nor, as the orthodox asserted, of the same essence (homo ousios), but of a similar essence (homoiousios). This was a very elastic and ambiguous view. The great defenders of the coequality of the Son and the Father were Athanasius (q.v.), the father of orthodoxy, at one time called, uAthanasius versus Basil, Gregory of Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa (qq.v.). The whole Christian world rang with the contest, which culminated, but did not end, with the decision of the Council of Nicna, the first men menical council, in 325 A.D., in these words, "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, be gotten of the Father (the only-begotten, that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God), Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father; by whom all things were made (both in heaven and in earth) ; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man; he suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven; from thence he shall come and judge the quick and the dead? After a renewed struggle, this creed, slightly enlarged, was re asserted at the second oecumenical council at Constantinople, 381 A.D.