Paul of Samosata

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Paul of Samosata

Paul of Samosata (lived from 200 to 275 AD) was Bishop of Antioch

Patriarch of Antioch

Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title carried by the Bishop of Antioch. As the traditional "overseer" of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in the church from its Early Christianity....
from 260 to 268. He was a believer in monarchianism

Monarchianism

Monarchianism or Monarchism is a set of beliefs that emphasize God as being unitarianism and the only Kingdom of God. The term "Monarchians" or "Monarchists" was given to Christians who defended the "monarchy" of God in a reaction against the Christ the Logos theology of Justin Martyr and the apologists, who had spoken of Jesus as a "se...
, and his teachings anticipate adoptionism

Adoptionism

Adoptionism, also called dynamic monarchianism, was a minority Christian belief that Jesus was born merely human and that he became divine later in his life....
.

was born at Samosata

Samosata

Samosata was an ancient city on the right bank of the Euphrates whose ruins existed at the modern city of Samsat, Turkey, Adiyaman Province, Turkey until the site was flooded by the newly-constructed Atat?rk Dam....
into a family of humble origin. He was elected bishop of Antioch

Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the nearer East and was a cradle of gentile hi...
in 260. He held the civil office of Procurator ducenarius.

He aroused controversy with his Monarchianist

Monarchianism

Synods of Antioch

Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times....
.

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Encyclopedia

Paul of Samosata (lived from 200 to 275 AD) was Bishop of Antioch

Patriarch of Antioch

Monarchianism

Adoptionism

Adoptionism, also called dynamic monarchianism, was a minority Christian belief that Jesus was born merely human and that he became divine later in his life....
.

Life

Paul was born at Samosata

Samosata

Antioch

Monarchianism

Synods of Antioch

Beginning with three synods convened between 264 and 269 in the matter of Paul of Samosata, more than thirty councils were held in Antioch in ancient times....
. They deposed Paul as bishop and elected Dominus as his successor. They also wrote an encyclical letter to Dionysius

Pope Dionysius

Pope Saint Dionysius was pope from July 22, 259 to December 26, 268.He may have been born in Magna Gr?cia, but this has not been verified. Dionysius was elected pope in 259, after the martyrdom of Sixtus II in 258....
and Maximus, bishops of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
and Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
respectively. This letter is the only indisputably contemporary document concerning him and was preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
's Ecclesiastical History
Church History (Eusebius)

The Church History of Eusebius of Caesarea was a fourth-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Christianity from the first century....
.

Despite being deposed by this synod, Paul still considered himself bishop and since he had friendly relations to Zenobia

Zenobia

Zenobia was a Roman Syrian queen who lived in the 3rd century. She was a Queen regnant of the Palmyrene Empire and the second wife of King Septimius Odaenathus....
, the separatist queen of Palmyra

Palmyra

Palmyra was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 120 km southwest of the Euphrates....
ruling in Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is an Arab-majority country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north....
, he continued to occupy the bishop's house in Antioch. Late in 272 however, when the emperor Aurelian

Aurelian

Lucius Domitius Aurelianus , known in English as Aurelian, Roman Emperor , was the second of several highly successful "soldier-emperors" who helped the Roman Empire regain its power during the latter part of the third century and the beginning of the fourth....
defeated Zenobia, Paul lost her protection. The Christians of Antioch brought their case before the Emperor who ordered Paul to yield the house to Domnus.

This was no interference into doctrinal issues, as Aurelian was a pagan and later even planned another persecution. The event however gives witness of the position of early Christians as Roman citizens and their relationship to the government in times when there was no persecution

Persecution

Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms....
.

Scholars have paid little heed to the charges of rapacity, extortion, pomp and luxury made against Paul by the authors of this letter. It also accused him not only of consorting himself with two "sisters" of ripe age and fair to look upon; but of allowing his presbyters and deacons also to contract platonic unions with Christian ladies. No actual lapses however from chastity were alleged, and its only complaint is that suspicions were aroused, apparently among the pagans.

Teachings

Paul's teaching is a form of Monarchianism

Monarchianism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is the ritual act, with the use of water, by which one is admitted as a full member of the Christian Church and, in the view of some, as a member of the particular Church in which the baptism is administered....
he was infused with the divine Logos

Logos

is an important term in philosophy, analytical psychology, rhetoric and religion.Heraclitus established the term in Western philosophy as meaning both the source and fundamental order of the cosmos....
or word of God. Hence, Jesus was seen not as God-become-man but as man-become-God. In his Discourses to Sabinus, of which only fragments are preserved in a book against heresies ascribed to Anastasius, Paul writes:

I. " Having been anointed by the Holy Spirit he received the title of the anointed (i.e. Christos), suffering in accordance with his nature, working wonders in accordance with grace. For in fixity and resoluteness of character he likened himself to God; and having kept himself free from sin was united with God, and was empowered to grasp as it were the 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 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 energy (i.e. activity) with Him through his advances in the path of good deeds. This will be preserved inseparable (from the Divine), and so inherited the name which is above all names, the prize of love and affection vouchsafed in grace to him."

IV. " We do not 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 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 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."

Paul was an early forerunner of Adoptionism

Adoptionism

Adoptionism, also called dynamic monarchianism, was a minority Christian belief that Jesus was born merely human and that he became divine later in his life....
. Possibly, the Paulicians of Armenia adhered to his teachings, and received their name from him. However historical records show instead that the Paulicians were bitterly persecuted more for their gnostic and iconoclastic

Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm, Greek for "image-breaking," is the deliberate destruction of important symbolic images recognized within a culture, religion, or society....
views than for a position on homoousious. Paul's pupil Lucian

Lucian of Antioch

Saint Lucian of Antioch was an early and extremely influential Theology and teacher of Christianity, particularly for the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics....
also had some influence on Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching of Arius , a Christian priest, who was first ruled a heresy at the First Council of Nicea, later exonerated and then pronounced a heretic again after his death....
.