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PAUL OF SAMOSATA

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 958 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PAUL OF See also:SAMOSATA , See also:patriarch of See also:Antioch (260-272), was, if we may See also:credit the encyclical See also:letter of his ecclesiastical opponents preserved in See also:Eusebius's See also:History, bk. vii. ch. 30, of humble origin. He was certainly See also:born farther See also:east at Samosata, and may have owed his promotion in the See also:Church to See also:Zenobia, See also:queen of See also:Palmyra. The letter just mentioned is the only indisputably contemporary document concerning him and was addressed to See also:Dionysius and See also:Maximus, respectively bishops of See also:Rome and See also:Alexandria, by seventy bishops, priests and deacons, who attended a See also:synod at Antioch in 269 and deposed Paul. Their See also:sentence, however, did not take effect until See also:late in 272, when the See also:emperor See also:Aurelian, having defeated Zenobia and anxious to impose upon See also:Syria the dogmatic See also:system fashionable in Rome, deposed Paul and allowed the See also:rival See also:candidate Domnus to take his See also:place and emoluments. Thus it was a See also:pagan emperor who in this momentous dispute ultimately determined what was orthodox and what was not; and the advanced Christology to which he gave his preference has ever since been upheld as the See also:official orthodoxy of the Church. Aurelian's policy moreover was in effect a recognition of the See also:Roman See also:bishop's pretension to be arbiter for the whole Church in matters of faith and See also:dogma. Scholars will pay little heed to the charges of rapacity, See also:extortion, pomp and luxury made against Paul by the authors of this letter. It also accuses him not only of consorting himself with two " sisters " of ripe See also:age and See also:fair to look upon; but of allowing his presbyters and deacons also to See also:contract platonic unions with See also:Christian ladies. No actual lapses how-ever from chastity are alleged, and it is only complained that suspicions were aroused, apparently among the pagans. The real See also:gravamen against Paul seems to have been that he clung to a Christology which was become archaic and had in Rome and Alexandria already fallen into the background. 20 Paul's See also:heresy See also:lay principally in his insistence on the genuine humanity of Jesus of See also:Nazareth, in contrast with the rising orthodoxy which merged his human consciousness in the divine See also:Logos.

It is best to give Paul's beliefs in his own words; and the following sentences are translated from Paul's Discourses to Sabinus, of which fragments are preserved in a See also:

work against heresies ascribed to See also:Anastasius, and printed by Angelo See also:Mai: I. " Having been anointed by the See also:Holy Spirit he received the See also:title of the anointed (i.e. Christos), suffering in accordance with his nature, working wonders in accordance with See also:grace. For in fixity and resoluteness of See also:character he likened himself to See also:God; and having kept himself See also:free from See also:sin was See also:united with God, and was empowered to grasp as it were the See also:power and authority of wonders. By these he was shown to possess over and above the will, one and the same activity (with God), and won the title of Redeemer and Saviour of our See also:race." II. " The Saviour became holy and just; and by struggle and hard work overcame the sins of our forefather. By these means he succeeded in perfecting himself, and was through his moral excellence united with God; having attained to unity and sameness of will and See also:energy (i.e. activity) with Him through his advances in the path of See also:good deeds. This will be preserved inseparable (from the Divine), and so inherited the name which is above all names, the See also:prize of love and See also:affection vouchsafed in grace to him." IV. " We do not See also:award praise to beings which submit merely in virtue of their nature; but we do award high praise to beings which submit because their attitude is one of love; and so submitting because their inspiring See also:motive is one and the same, they are confirmed and strengthened by one and the same indwelling power, of which the force ever grows, so that it never ceases to stir. It was in virtue of this love that the Saviour coalesced with God, so as to admit of no See also:divorce from Him, but for all ages to retain one and the same will and activity with Him, an activity perpetually at work in the manifestation of good." V. " Wonder not that the Saviour had one will with God. For as nature manifests the substance of the many to subsist as one and the same, so the attitude of love produces in the many an unity and sameness of will which is manifested by unity and sameness of approval and well-pleasingness." From other fairly attested See also:sources we infer that Paul regarded the See also:baptism as a landmark indicative of a See also:great See also:stage in the moral advance of Jesus.

But it was a See also:

man and not the divine Logos which was born of See also:Mary. Jesus was a man who came to be God, rather than God become man. Paul's Christology therefore was of the Adoptionist type, which we find among the See also:primitive Ebionite Christians of See also:Judaea, in See also:Hermas, Theodotus and See also:Artemon of Rome, and in See also:Archelaus the opponent of Mani, and in the other great doctors of the Syrian Church of the 4th and 5th centuries. See also:Lucian the great exegete of Antioch and his school derived their See also:inspiration from Paul, and he was through Lucian a forefather of Arianism. Probably the See also:Paulicians of See also:Armenia continued his tradition, and hence their name (see PAULICIANS). Paul of Samosata represented the high-See also:water See also:mark of Christian See also:speculation; and it is deplorable that the fanaticism of his own and of succeeding generations has See also:left us nothing but a few scattered fragments of his writings. Already at the See also:Council of See also:Nicaea in 325 the Pauliani were put outside the Church and condemned to be rebaptized. It is interesting to See also:note that at the synod of Antioch the use of the word consubstantial to denote the relation of God the See also:Father to the divine Son or Logos was condemned, although it afterwards became at the Council of Nicaea the watchword of the orthodox See also:faction.

End of Article: PAUL OF SAMOSATA

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