o, did not believe
the Three in One and One in Three, "denying the utterances of the
prophets, rejecting the doctrine of learned men, and, while they claimed
to take their stand upon the Gospel, pointing to texts like John xx. 17,
'I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, unto my God and your God,' to
prove that Christ was merely man."[1] In his answer to Alvar's letter,
Speraindeo says, "If we speak of the Trinity as one Person, we Judaize;"
he might have added, "and Mohammedanize." These heretics, according to
the abbot, spoke of three powers (_virtutes_) forming one Person, not,
as the orthodox held, three Persons forming one God.[2] Here we see a
close resemblance to the error mentioned in the preceding paragraph; but
the heretics we are now dealing with make an even closer approach to the
teaching of Mohammed in their quotation of John xx. 17 given above, as
will be seen, if we compare with that text the following passages of the
Koran, put into the mouth of Christ: "Verily, God is my Lord, and your
Lord; therefore serve him:"[3] "They are surely infidels who say,
verily, God is Christ, the Son of Mary, since Christ said, O children of
Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord:"[4] and, "I have not spoken
unto them any other than what thou didst command me--namely, worship
God, my Lord and your Lord."[5]

[1] Alvar's letter. Florez, xi. 147. Another text quoted in
defence of this doctrine of Agnoetism was Matt. xxiv. 36: "Of
that day and that hour knoweth no man; no, not the angels of
heaven, but my Father only." In answer to this, Speraindeo
refers to Gen. iii. 9, where God the Father seems not to know
where Adam is.

[2] Speraindeo's illustration of the Trinity cannot be called a
happy one. He likens it to a king, whose power is one, but made
up of the man himself, his diadem, and his purple.

[3] Koran, c. iii. v. 46.

[4] Kor., c. v. 77.

[5] Kor., c. v. 118.

We come next to the famous Adoptionist heresy, the most remarkable and
original of those innovations to which Alcuin taunts the Spanish Church
with being addicted. Unfortunately we derive little of our knowledge of
the new doctrine from the originators and supporters of it--our
information on the subject coming chiefly from passages quoted by their
opponents (notably our own Alcuin) in controversial works. But that the
heresy had an important connection with the Mohammedan religion has been
the opini