Subordinationism

SUBORDINATIONISM. - An erroneous theory or even Trinitarian heresy, which admits a certain hierarchical subordination of the three persons within the Most Holy Trinity (v.) by reason of a relative inferiority and superiority of nature. Arianism (v.), renouncing from the very starting point the faith of the Church, begins from the presupposition that the Word is not true God, but a simple creature of a nature essentially inferior to the Father, although more perfect than the other creatures; the Spirit, moreover, is inferior to the Word, the first creature of the Word. Against such heretical subordinationism the magisterium defended the faith by proclaiming the consubstantiality of the persons (v. NICEA, Council I of; CONSTANTINOPLE, Council I of). The subordinationist theory among the pre-Nicene Catholic doctors is of an altogether different spirit.

All admit as a presupposition the Trinitarian faith as it is imposed by the New Testament and professed by the Church, especially in the baptismal practice, which faith simultaneously affirms rigid monotheism, the strict divinity of both the Father and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (against adoptionism [v.]), the real and personal distinction of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (against modalism [v.]). See, for example, Justin, I Apol., 6, 13; especially for the strict divinity of the Son, ibid. 22, 23; II Apol., 6; Dial., 48, 56, 61, 128; Athenagoras, Legat., 10, 12, 24; Theophilus, Ad Autol., II, 15, 18; Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrat., 3 (PG 9, 734); Origen, De Princ. praef., 4; Dialektos, ed. J. Scherer, Paris 1949, p. 129; Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 2; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 16; Novatian, De Trin., 1, 9, 29, 30. From about 180 these Christian writers, struggling explicitly against modalism, were concerned above all to bring out the real distinction of the Persons. Once the aforementioned faith was presupposed, the authors wished only to propose some scientific explanation that might in some way clarify what the faith simply affirmed, namely how the aforementioned points can be reconciled with one another (v. , for example, Athenagoras, Legat., 12; Origen, Dialektos, ed. Scherer, p. 129; Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 2). In practice they were concerned above all with the relations between Father and Son. The question of the Holy Spirit before about 360 remained rather in the background.

Among the designations that the faith gives to the second Person, the pre-Nicene writers dwelt by preference on that of Logos, Word of God, of the Father, and on this they built their attempts at explanation, striving to clarify in some way how God, the Father, has a Logos distinct from himself and true God, without prejudice to monotheism. In this attempt they sought to make use of the ideas of the philosophy of the age, Middle Platonism, concerning the Logos and its relations with the supreme God and with the world, especially as they had been elaborated by Philo of Alexandria (v.). Even with nuances and differences, there resulted among the Trinitarian writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries an essentially identical theory. They had a strong tendency to reserve to the Father, to the exclusion of the Son, as a specific property of nature, certain attributes that indicate the absolute transcendence of God, and that in themselves are common to the three Persons, first of all invisibility: only the Son by nature could come into contact with the world and appear, and only he would in fact have appeared in the Old Testament (v. , for example, Justin, Dial., 60, 126, 127; Theophilus, Ad Autol., II, 22; Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 14, 15; Adv. Marc., 2, 27; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., V, 3, 12; Origen, De Princ., I, 1, 8; In Io. Co., VI, 110; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 8, 10; Novatian, De Trin., 31; Clement, Strom., IV, 25 and Origen In Io. Co., I, 20, 23), assigning to the Father alone the absolute simplicity of nature, they attribute to the Son already a certain multiplicity. Then, again because of the tendency to reserve to the Father the absolute transcendence, conceived moreover in an exaggerated manner according to the Platonic tradition (v. , for example, Justin, II Apol. 6; Theophilus, Ad Autol., I, 5; Origen, Contra Cels.,

VII, 38), they seek the explanation of the generation of the Logos within God, in connection with the creation of the world (see, for example, Philo, De spec. Leg., I, 81); the Logos is conceived as the necessary intermediary and instrument of the Father for creation. Striving to imagine the generation of the Logos with the Stoic theory of the Logos endiathetos (the inner word, which every man, thinking silently, shadows forth within himself) and prophorikos (the same word clearly formed, uttered and perceptible externally), they believe for the most part that they can distinguish in the intra-Trinitarian generation of the second Person, as it were, two successive moments: first, God the Father, by thinking, eternally and silently forms within himself his Logos; at this stage the Logos is not yet a perfect person, formed, clearly distinct from the Father, is not yet the Son; he becomes such, however, when God decides to create the world, thus uttering and as it were distinctly forming his Logos with a view to creation and as an instrument of it (see, for example, Justin, II Apol., 6; Dial., 61; Tatian, Orat., 5; Athenagoras, Legat., 10; Theophilus, Ad Autol., II, 10; Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theod., 19; Strom., V, 3; Paedag., I, 9; Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 5-7; Contra Hermog., 3; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 10).

The generation of the Son being therefore placed in close relation with creation, it is said that the Father generated the Son by his own will, when he willed (see, for example, Justin, Dial., 61, 128; Tatian, Orat., 5; Theophilus, Ad Autol., II, 22; Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 6; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 10; Novatian, De Trin., 31), with the consequence of endangering the eternal generation of the Son as such (see Tertullian, Contra Hermog., 3). Nevertheless, to safeguard the faith, some insisted that the generation of the Son as such is eternal (Novatian, De Trin., 31), and Origen believed he could reconcile the one and the other assertion by admitting the eternity of creation and therefore of the generation of the Son (De Princ., I, 2, 2; IV, 4, 1). All this naturally induces an inferiority of nature of the Son with respect to the Father. Tertullian admitted it explicitly (Adv. Prax., 9, 26; Adv. Marc., 2, 27) and comprehended the whole theory in the concept of "economy" (Adv. Prax., 2; cf. also Hippolytus, C. Noët., 14), that is, the hierarchical intra-Trinitarian distinction and subordination of the Persons, manifesting itself also in their work in the world. Origen more than anyone else presses the subordinationist consequences, proposing a Trinity of three descending degrees, calling the Son a creature of the Father and regarding the Spirit as the first creature of the Son (In Io. Com., II, 2; XIII, 25; Contra Cels., V, 39; De Princ., I, 2, 13; 3, 5; In Matth. Com., XV, 10).

But since, however, these authors had no intention at all of renouncing the faith of the Church and therefore the strict divinity of the three Persons, they thought to avoid the stumbling block by affirming in every way that in this subordination the strict divinity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit was not compromised, because they were always conceived in strict unity of nature with the Father and never separated from him. According to a theory accepted by the philosophers of the time (see Maximus of Tyre, Diss., 39, 5; cf. also Aristides, Apol., 13), they believed that from the unity of volition and action of the three Persons their unity of nature could be sufficiently deduced (see, for example, Justin, Dial., 56; Origen, Contra Cels., VIII, 12; Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 4; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 14; Novatian, De Trin., 31). To assert this they had recourse to various metaphors, such as that of the sun, its ray and the tip of the ray, of the root of a tree, the trunk and the fruit, of the source, the river and the stream. Tertullian, in asserting this unity, arrived at an already definitive metaphysical formulation: unity of substance, distinction of persons (see Justin, Dial., 61, 128; Athenagoras, Legat., 24; Tertullian, Adv. prax., 2, 4, 8, 25; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 8, 14; Novatian, De Trin., 31). Origen believes he can explain the same unity between Father and Son by resorting to the Middle Platonic theme (see, for example, Albinus, Didaskalikos, X, 2-4; XIV, 3) of contemplation as the cause of physical unity: the Son preserves unity of substance with the Father because he contemplates the Father incessantly (In Io. Com., II, 2).

Subordinationism was a simple erroneous theory of theologians and does not touch the faith of the Church. This is already shown by the clear distinction, in the authors who proposed it, between faith, the absolute norm, and the further learned explanation of the faith, proposed by individual authors at their own risk and peril, a distinction always presupposed and not infrequently explicitly affirmed (see, for example, Justin, Dial., 48; Athenagoras, Legat., 10; Irenaeus, passim and forcefully, for example, Adv. Haer., I, 10, 2-3; II, 23, 34 and 26, 28; Tertullian, De praescr., 12, 5; 13, 6; 14, 1; Adv. Prax., 2; Hippolytus, Contra Noët., 6; Novatian, De Trin., 30; Origen, with every desirable clarity, for example, De Princ. Praef., 3 ff.). It is shown in the second place by the explicit intervention of the Roman pontiffs, solicitous to protect the faith no less against modalism than against the bold theories of the learned. The theory of "economy" of Hippolytus (and therefore of Tertullian) was rejected by Pope Zephyrinus (199-217) and by Pope Callistus I (217-22) as implying ditheism (see Hippolytus, Philos., IX, 11, 3; 12). The Origenian theory was strongly rejected by Pope Dionysius (259-68), who, with a very notable exposition of the simple doctrine of the faith apart from any illustrative theory, invited Dionysius the Great of Alexandria, a supporter of the doctrines of Origen, to justify himself (see St. Athanasius, De decretis, 26). It is shown finally by the opposition of St. Irenaeus in the name of the simple faith not only against Gnostic speculations, but undoubtedly also against the speculations of the authors of the 2nd century (Adv. Haer., II, 13, 8; 28, 6), and especially the opposition of the simple faithful, who in their Christian sense as it was formed by the daily magisterium of the Church, in the learned theories of the writers, as these more than once confessed, scented an offense against monotheism (Tertullian, Adv. Prax., 3; Hippolytus, Philos., IX, 11, 3; Origen, In Io. Com., I, 27; II, 3; De orat., 15; 16, 1. On the subject of Novatian see St. Cyprian, Epist., 60, 3). For the opposition of the faithful of Alexandria against the Origenism of their bishop Dionysius, see St. Athanasius, De sententia Dionisii. The theory in the Catholic field came to an end with the condemnation of Arian subordinationism.