Syriac Patrology, Volume 3: The Book of Steps

PRAEFATIO — CAPUT III. | DE DOCTRINA LIBRI GRADUUM — I. DE DEO UNO AC TRINO.

having compared it with the Alqosh example of the same, published the entire heresiological treatise in Syriac.

Among the heresies listed therein, the sect of the Audians also occurs, of whose doctrine the following are reported:

Heresy of the sect of the Audians. They assert that the Trinity exists in a composition and that the persons subsist composed with one another. Among them are some ascetics who fast, are devoted to receiving pilgrims, and spend the days of their whole life in weeping. If anyone among them transgresses and laughs, they cast him out from their midst.

In the Arabic text of Abraham Ecchellensis, the same sect is called that of the Photinians; falsely, however, as is already evident from the Syriac text. For the ascetic doctrine of the Photinians has hardly anything in common with our book, nor is it probable that their Christological tenets were widespread among the Syrians. On the contrary, the doctrine of the Audians bears some similarity to the tenets of the Book of Steps, as will be shown in its proper place.

It is also of the highest importance that, by the testimony of Marutha, the Audians were divided into two factions: those who pray and those who fast. A. Harnack already correctly suspected that the Messalians were hidden under the name of those who pray². It suffices to note that in the heresiological booklet of Timothy, a priest of Constantinople³, an error very similar is attributed to the Messalians: that the three substances of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are dissolved and changed into one substance⁴; indeed, a Sabellian error entirely consistent with the words of Marutha. From this, it must be concluded that the Messalians of Marutha were probably the same as those who were also once called Adelphians and Euchites, and that they, like the Author of the Book of Steps, were addicted to Sabellian errors. Whether all of them [were], is another question. For in the fifth century, the sect of the Messalians also gained many followers in Armenia. Against them, in the year 447, a synod was convened in the city of Shahapivan under the presidency of Patriarch Joseph, whose canons, especially the 19th and 20th, decreed torture and other severe punishments for the followers of Messalianism⁵. However, Conybeare thinks these Armenian Messalians were Adoptionists, addicted to the errors of the Paulicians⁶. Nevertheless, the arguments collected by that learned man to prove this thesis do not resolve the matter. For the canons of the Synod of Shahapivan do not mention the Christological doctrine of the Messalians (in Armenian mtslnēuthiun = Syriac: metsalyanutha prayerfulness/Messalianism⁷); hence it remains uncertain whether the Armenian Messalians were truly associates of the Paulicians, or not¹.

¹ O. c. p. 10. — ² Beginning of the 7th century; see Bardenhewer, Patrology, p. 534.
³ On the Reception of Heretics, Migne, P. G. vol. LXXXVI, col. 49.
⁴ Karapet Ter-Mkrttschian, The Paulicians in the Byzantine Empire and Related Heretical Phenomena in Armenia. Leipzig, 1893, p. 41 sqq.
⁵ The Key of Truth, ed. Conybeare. Oxford, 1898, p. CVIII.
⁶ Karapet Ter-Mkrttschian, o. c. p. 42.
⁷ Moreover, Adoptionist doctrine not only does not exclude Monarchianism, but rather...

It is clear from what has been said that the phrases found in the Book of Steps, such as "perfect Trinity" and "undivided Trinity," are not to be taken in the orthodox sense according to the mind of the Author. The Author undoubtedly accepted the theological terminology prevalent in the Church on the surface, yet he seems to have subjected those theological terms to a completely heterodox notion. For Trinitarian doxologies already appear here and there among ancient Christian authors in the third century¹.

4. Indeed, there can be little doubt about the Sabellian sense of the cited passages; yet it is equally certain that the Author is not consistent with himself when it comes to the individual divine persons. Sermon XV, 12 (and elsewhere passim) clearly distinguishes the Father from the Son, when he teaches that the Father and the Lord willed to be reconciled to the world through the passion and cross of His Son. In Sermon XXX, 24, he says Christ is co-eternal with the Father² and rather assumes this. Whether the Syrian Messalians were ever addicted to Adoptionist doctrine is not established, nor is it probable; the authors at least are silent on this matter.

¹ St. Basil in his work On the Holy Spirit n. 73 (page 61, Maurist ed., vol. III; cf. Routh, Reliquiae Sacrae, III, 516) reports that from ancient times a vesper hymn composed by an unknown author was recited by the faithful, which also contains a Trinitarian doxology: O joyous light of the holy glory of the immortal Father, heavenly, holy, blessed, Jesus Christ; having come to the setting of the sun, seeing the evening light, we hymn the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit of God (cf. Tertull. On Prayer, c. 25). In the same work l. c. he cites a passage from book V of the Chronicle of Julius Africanus, which [says]: We give thanks to the Father, who has provided for his own, the Savior of all and our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be glory and greatness with the Holy Spirit forever (cf. Routh, o. c. vol. II, page 308). St. Dionysius of Alexandria, according to the same Basil (in op. cit., page 60 Maurist ed. cf. Routh, o. c. III, 399), concludes his letter sent to Dionysius of Rome with the words: To God the Father and the Son our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, be glory and power for ages of ages. Amen. But Clement of Alexandria already closed his Paedagogus with a Trinitarian doxology (III, 12). Nor are traces of such a doxology lacking among the Syrians. The following are read in Aphrahat (P. S. II, 127):
Glory and honor to the Father and to his Son and to his living and holy Spirit from all those who honor him, the heavenly and earthly, for ages of ages. Amen and Amen. Cf. B. S. S. XIII, 3; XVI, 10; XX, 15. Nor is the epithet living and holy applied to the Holy Spirit absent from the Book of Steps. Cf. S. IX, 4 cited above, where the Author equated the Holy Spirit with the Lord (Marya). From these passages it is clear that Trinitarian doxologies were also accustomed to be recited in the usage of the Church among the Syrians. Labourt writes well on this matter (Christianity in the Persian Empire, p. 32): In the work of Aphrahat the trinitarian doctrine is only sketched. The doxologies and professions of faith which it contains mention, like all those posterior to the second century, the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; but Aphrahat made no metaphysical reflection on these data, which were provided to him by the most ancient ecclesiastical tradition. The distinction of the divine Persons, their equality, and their consubstantiality do not form part of his teaching. Which can also be said of the B. S.
² The Lord, however, was and is, in that his Father is [God] from eternity and unto eternity Syriac: Marya den i-t-wah wa i-t-wah min aikana d-i-t-wah abuhi min alam wa-dama l-alam.