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Shortly after the turn of the second century, Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, consulted Emperor Trajan about the rapidly spreading Christian "superstition" in his district, asking him what he should do about it. By interrogating a few people, Pliny learned that "on an appointed day," Christians habitually met before daybreak and recited "a hymn to Christ, as to a god."

These hymns, which go back to the earliest days of Christianity, sharply contradict the popular notion that the doctrine of the Incarnation is only a brainchild of fourth-century theologians playing irrelevant word-games. Long before Christian emperors convened their solemn assemblies, thousands of Christian worship services sang the praises of the Holy Child of Bethlehem.

This is one reason the orthodox party eventually triumphed in the Arian controversy: Athanasius simply argued theologically what the church had been singing for two centuries. But if the Arian controversy settled the issue of Christ's full divinity and humanity, it did not settle the issue of exactly how the divine Christ became human. That concern was left to later theologians.

With the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity (A.D. 312), the church marked a new phase in its triumphant expansion. Almost overnight it became fashionable to believe. As a result, churches were crowded, as professor Alan Richardson said, "with the half-converted, the socially ambitious, and the ill-instructed." The Greek idea of God as utterly transcendent reappeared with new vigor among professing Christians—with mixed results.

During the fourth century, two schools of theology offered contrasting interpretations of biblical passages speaking of the Incarnation. One of these was at Alexandria, the other at Antioch. The Alexandrians emphasized strongly the divine nature; the Antiochenes, the human. One began in heaven and moved to earth; the other commenced on earth and looked to heaven.

The first sophisticated explanation of the Incarnation came from the Alexandrian side of the debate, from one Apollinarius (c.310-c.392), an elderly pastor of Laodicea who greatly admired Athanasius, leader of the Alexandrian school. We may be inclined to think of all heretics as dark, sinister figures bent on the overthrow of Christian truth, but Apollinarius's lapse into heresy didn't happen until he was over 60. Till then he enjoyed a reputation as a pillar of orthodoxy. Churches throughout the empire experienced only shock when they first heard that the venerable bishop had fallen into error.

Echoing Athanasius, Apollinarius began his case for the Incarnation with the full deity of Christ: only God could save the world, and, if Christ is Savior, he must be divine. But the question is, how?

The old scholar struck upon the idea of approaching the question from a psychological view. He felt that human nature embraced the body and the soul. But at the Incarnation, the divine Word displaced the animating and rational soul in a human body, creating a "unity of nature" between the Word and his body. Humanity, he felt, was the sphere, not the instrument of salvation—merely the place where salvation occurred, not a means of salvation. Christ, therefore, had only one nature: Apollinarius spoke of "one enfleshed nature of the divine Word." The Alexandrian stress on Christ's deity remains, but the only thing human about Christ was his physical body.

Apollinarius, definite as his heresy was, deserves our praise for a pioneering effort that forced the church to think more deeply about Christ. His fault lies in his inability to push any further into the heart of truth. The widespread respect that Apollinarius had gained over the years explains why he was never exiled—though, as a heretic, he was forbidden to worship in the Catholic church. He died in his eighties, remaining a scholar and writer to the end.

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