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The Anthropomorphic Controversy in the Time of Theophilus of Alexandria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Massey Hamilton Shepherd Jr
Massey Hamilton Shepherd Jr
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

It was the long-established custom of the Alexandrian patriarch to write each year a paschal letter to the faithful of his province. In the letter of the year 399 the Patriarch Theophilus, an ecclesiastic of great ability but few scruples, inveighed rather severely against those who taught that God was corporeal, or in other words that God had bodily form. This opinion was by no means extraordinary. For over two centuries Alexandria had been the leading center of Christian theology, and for a much longer period a pre-eminent seat of philosophic learning as well. The repudiation of anthropomorphic conceptions of God had long been a matter of common acceptance by pagan and Christian theologians alike who laid any claim to a liberal education.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , September 1938 , pp. 263 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1938

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References

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