II. But the Homoousion did not merely justify and explain

the devotional attitude of the Church towards Jesus Christ: it was, in reality, in keeping with the general drift and sense of her traditional language.
Reference has already been made to the prayers of the primitive martyrs; but the martyrs professed in terms their belief in Christ’s divinity, as frequently as they implied that belief by their adorations of Christ. This is the more observ- able because it is at variance with the suggestions by which those who do not share the faith of the martyrs, sometimes attempt to account for the moral spectacle which martyrdom presents. It has been said that the martyrs did not bear witness to any definite truth or dogma; that the martyr-temper, so to term it, was composed of two elements, a kind of military en- thusiasm for an unseen Leader, and a strange unnatural desire to brave physical suffering; that the prayers uttered by the martyrs were the product of this compound feeling, but that such prayers did not imply any defined conceptions respecting the rank and powers of Him to Whom they were addressed. Now, without denying that the martyrs were sustained by a strictly supernatural contempt for pain, or that their devotion to our Lord was of the nature of an intense personal attach- ment which could not brook the least semblance of slight or disloyalty, or that they had not analysed their intellectual appre- hension of the truth before them in the manner of the divines of the Nicene age, I nevertheless affirm that the martyrs did suffer on behalf of a doctrine which was dearer to them than life. The Christ with Whom they held such close and passionate communion, and for Whose honour they shed their blood, was not to them a vague floating idea, or a being of whose rank and powers they imagined themselves to be ignorant. If there be one doctrine of the faith which they especially confessed at death, it is the doctrine of our Lord’s Divinity. This truth was not only confessed by bishops and presbyters. Philosophers,
that they believed Him to be a mere man, whose presence with them, and whose knowledge of their situation, they could not therefore be assured of.” This work appeared in 1782, —
_ [wEcr.
en μουὌ σεν opie : ee ae Se St ee ata ὌΨΡΗ» ᾿
by the primitive martyrs. 415
like Justint; soldiers, such as Maurice ἃ, and Tarachus Y, and Theodorus Χ ; young men of personal veauty like Peter of Lamp- sacus Y, or literary friends of high menial cultivation as were Epipodius and Alexander?; widows, such as Symphorosa® ; and
t Ruinart, Acta, p.49: ‘EHgo quidem ut homo imbeciilis sum, et longé minor quam ut de infinitd iliius Deitate aliquid magnum Gicere possim: Prophetarum munus hoc esse fateor,
ἃ Tbid. p. 243: ‘Milites sumus, Imperator, tui: sed tamen servi, quod liberé confitemur, Dei... .. . Habes hic nos confitentes Deum Patrem auctorem omnium; et Filium Ejus Jesum Christum DETM eredimus,’
¥ Ibid. p. 377: Tdpaxos elev’ ‘Nov ἀληθῶς φρονιμώτερόν με ἐποίησας, ταῖς πληγαῖς ἐνλυναμώσας me, ἔτι μᾶλλον πεποιθέναι με ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Θευῦ καὶ τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ. Μάξιμος ἡγεμὼν εἶπεν" “᾿Ανοσιώτατε καὶ τρισκατάρατε, πῶς δυσὶ θεοῖς λατρεύεις, καὶ αὐτὸς ὁμολογῶν, τοὺς θεοὺς ἀρνῇ ;᾽ Τάραχος εἶπεν" “᾿Εγὼ Θεὸν ὁμολογῶ τὸν ὄντως ὄντα. Μάξιμος ἡγεμὼν εἶπεν" ‘Kal μὴν καὶ Χριστόν τινα ἔφης εἶναι Ody.’ Τάραχος εἶπεν" “Οὕτως ἔχει" αὐτὸς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ Ὑιὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος, ἣ ἐλπὶς τῶν Χριστιανῶν, Be ὃν καὶ πάσχοντες σωζόμεθα.;
x Ibid. p. 425: ‘ Vos autem erratis qui demonas fallaces et impostores Dei appellatione honoratis ; mihi vero Deus est Christus, Dei Unigenitus Filius. Pro pietate igitur atque confessione Istius, et qui vulnerat inci- dat ; et qui verberat laceret; et qui cremat flammam admoveut ; et qui his vocibus meis offenditur, linguam eximat.’
y Ibid. p.135: ‘Comprehensus est quidam, Petrus nomine, να] δ quidem fortis in fide; pulcher animo et speciosus corpore. Proconsul dixit: Habes ante oculos decreta invictissimorum principum. Sacrifica ergo magne dee Venert. Petrus respondit: Miror, δὲ persuades mihi, optime Pro- consul, sacrificare impudice mulieri et sordide, que talia opera egit ut confusio sit enarrare.... Oportet ergo me magis DEO vivo et vero, Regi seculorum omnium Christo sacrificium offerre orationis deprecationis, compunctionis et laudis. Audiens hee Proconsul jussit eum adhue etate adolescentulum tendi in rota, et inter ligna in circuitu posita, vinculis ferreis totum corpus ejus fecit constringi: ut contortus et confractus [1] minutatim ossa ejus comminuerentur. Quanto autem plus torquebatur famulus Dei, tanto mayis fortior apparebat. Constans vero aspectu, et ridens de ejus stultitid, conspiciens in celum ait: Tibi ago gratias, Domine Jesu Christe, qui mihi hanc tolerantiam dare dignatus es ad vincendum nequissimum tyrannum. Tune Proconsul videns tantam ejus perseverantiam, et nec his quidem defecisse tormentis, jussit eum gladio percuti.’
* Acta, p. 65, circ. a. 178: ‘Ita literis eruditissimi, concordia crescente, adeo provecti sunt:.....ad hec beatus Epipodius. ..... Sempiternum vero Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum quem crucificum memoras, re- surrexisse non nosti, qui ineffabili mysterio homo pariter et Deus, famulis sus tramitem immortalitatis instituit,.....Christum cum Patre ac Spiritu Sancto Deum esse confiteor, dignumque est ut illi animam meam refundam, qui mihi et Creator est et Redemptor.’
a Thid. p. 21, a. 120: ‘Si pro nomine Christi Dei mei incensa fuero, tllos demones tuos magis exuro,’ vu |
“ὁ AI1VING of Ch wr Ly
πα΄ slaves such as Vitalis¢; and
poor women like Domnina > *;—the learned and the illiterate, young boys such as Mart'g noble and the lowly, the slave and the young and the oldas confession, Sometimes it is wrung his master, united *antly by cross-examination ; sometimes it from the martyr r-ruth with which the Christian heart is full A proclaimed ay nich, out of the heart’s abundance, the Chris- to bursting, ax0t but speak. Sometimes Christ’s Divinity is tian mouthvelonging to the great Christian contradiction of professev1sm of the heathen world around; sometimes it is the ru as involving Christ’s Unity with the Father, against exrgan imputation of ditheism®; sometimes it is proclaimed yustifying the worship which, as the heathens knew, Chris- ans paid to Christ. The martyrs look paganism in the face, and maintain that, although Christ was crucified, yet nevertheless Christ is God; that even while His very Name is cast out as
416 Lxplicct confessions
Ὁ Ruinart, Acta, p. 235: ‘Ne in ignem eternam incidam, et tormenta perpetua, Dewm colo et Christum ejus, qui fecit coelum et terram.’
¢ Thid. p. 410 (cf. St. Ambr. de Exh. Virgin. c. 1), circ. a. 304: ‘Martyri nomen Agricola est, cui Vitalis servus fuit ante, nunc consors et collega martyrii. Precessit servus, ut provideret locum; secutus est dominus... cumque sanctus Vitalis cogeretur a persequentibus ut Christum negaret, et ille amplits profiteretur Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, omnia tor- mentorum genera in eum exercentes, ut non esset in corpore ejus sine vulnere locus, orationem fudit ad Dominum dicens; Domine Jesu Christe, Salvator meus, et Deus meus; jube suscipit spiritum meum; quia jam desidero ut accipiam coronam, quam angelus tuus sanctus mihi ostendit, Et completa oratione emisit spiritum.’
4 Tbid., Passio S. Felicitatis et Septem Filiorum Ejus, p. 23: ‘Hoc quoque amoto, jussit septimum Martialem ingredi, e'que dixit: Crudelitatis vestre factores effecti, Augustorum instituta contemnitis, et in vestra per- nicie permanetis. Respondit Martialis: O si nosses que pene idolorum cultoribus parate sunt! Sed adhuc differt Deus iram suam in vos et idola vestra demonstrare. Omnes enim qui non confitentur CHRISTUM VERUM esse Deum in ignem eternum mittentur.’
ὁ Ibid. p. 122: ‘Post hec cum adstante haud procul Asclepiade, quis diceretur inquireret [Polemon scilicet] respondit Asclepiades, Chris- tianus. Polemon: Cujus ecclesize? Asclepiades: Catholice, Polemon: Quem Deum colis? Respondit: Christum. Polemon: Quid ergo? iste alter est? Respondit: Non, sed ipse quem et ipsi paullo ante confessi sunt,’ :
Cf. Prudentius, Peristeph. Hymn. ro, 671 :—
‘Arrisit infans, nec moratus retulit: Est quidquid illud, quod ferunt bomines Deum Unum esse oportet, et quod uni est unicum. Cum Christus hoc sit, Christus est verus Deus. Genera deorum multa nec pueri putant,’
[ Lect.
by the primitive martyrs. 417
evil, Christ is really Master of the fortunes of Rome and Dis- poser of the events of history; that the pagan empire itself did but unwittingly subserve His purposes and prepare His triumph‘; that He Who is the Creator of heaven and earth, can afford to wait, and is certain of the future. This was the faith which made any compromise with paganism impossible 8.
{ Prudentius has given a poetical amplification of the last prayer of St. Laurence, which, whatever its historic value, at any rate may be taken to represent the primitive Christian sentiment respecting the relation of Jesus Christ to the pagan empire. It should be noticed that neither St. Ambrose nor St. Augustine, in their accounts of the martyrdom, report anything of this kind; Prudentius may have followed a distinct and trust- worthy tradition, The martyr is interceding for Rome :—
*O Christe, numen unicum,
O splendor, O virtus Patris, O factor orbis et poli,
Atque auctor horum menium!
Qui sceptra Rome in vertice Rerum locasti, sanciens Mundum Quirinali toge Servire, et armis cedere
Ut discrepantum gentium Mores, et observantiam, Linguasque et ingenia et sacra Unis domares legibus.
En omne sub regnum Remi Mortale concessit genus: Idem loquuntur dissoni
Ritus, id ipsum sanciunt.
Hoe destinatum quo magis Jus Christiani nominis, Quodcumque terrarum jacet Uno illigaret vinculo.
Da, Christe, Romanis tuis Sit Christiana ut civitas: Per quem dedisti, ut ceteris Mens una sacrorum foret.’ Peristeph. 2, 413. ® Prud. Peristeph. Hymn. 5.57; qu. by Ruinart, Acta, p.330. De 8, Vincentii martyrio :— *Vox nostra que sit accipe. Est Christus et Pater Deus: Servi hujus ac testes sumus ἢ Extorque si potes fidem. Tormenta, carcer, ungule Stridensque flammis lamina Atque ipsa peenarum ultima; Mors Christianis ludus est.’
vu } Ee
418 Didthe‘higher minds accept the faithof thepeople?
‘What God dost thou worship?’ enquired the judges of the Christian Pionius. ‘I worship,’ replied Pionius, ‘Him Who made the heavens, and Who beautified them with stars, and Who has enriched the earth with flowers and trees.’ ‘ Dost thou mean,’ asked the magistrates, ‘Him Who was crucified ?’ ‘Certainly,’ replied Pionius; ‘Him Whom the Father sent for the salvation of the world h,’
The point before us notoriously admits of the most copious illustrationi: and it is impossible to mistake its significance. If the dying words of this or that martyr are misreported, or exaggerated, or coloured by the phraseology of a later age, the general phenomenon cannot but be admitted, as a fact beyond dispute. The martyrs of the primitive Church died, in a great number of cases, expressly for the dogma of Christ’s Divinity. The confessions of the martyrs explain and justify the prayers of the martyrs; the Homoousion combines, summarizes, fixes the sense of their confessions. The martyrs did not pray to or confess a creature external to the Essence of God, however dignified, however powerful, however august. They prayed to Christ as God, they confessed that Christ is God, they died for Christ as God. They prayed to Him and they spoke of Him as of a distinct Person, Who yet was one with God. Does not this simple faith of the Christian people cover the same area as the more clearly defined faith of the Nicene fathers? Or could it be more fairly or more accurately summarized by any other symbol than it is by the Homoousion ?
But you admit that the Nicene decision did very fairly embody and fix in a symbolical form the popular creed of earlier cen- turies. ‘This,’ you say, ‘is the very pith of our objection; it was the popular creed to which the Council gave the sanction of its authority.’ You suggest that although a dying martyr may be an interesting ethical study, yet that the moral force which carries him through his sufferings is itself apt to be a form of fanaticism hostile to any severely intellectual conception of the worth and bearings of his creed. You admit that the martyr
h Ruinart, p.125: ‘Judices interim dixerunt: Quem Deum colitis? Pionius respondit: Hune qui celum fecit, et sideribus ornavit, qui terram statuit, et floribus arboribusque decoravit; qui ordinavit circumflua terre et maria, et statuta terminorum vel litorum lege signavit. Tum illi: Illum dicis qui crucifirus est? Et Pionius: Illwm dico quem pro salute orbis Pater misit.’
τ Tbid., Acta Sincera, p. 210, for the confession of Sapricius, who after- wards fell; p. 235; p. 256 for that of Victor at Marseilles; pp.274, 314, 341, 435, 438, 439, 497, 47% 479, 483, 506, 513, 514, 521. [
LECT,
Christ's Divinity taught by sub-apostolic Fathers. 419
represents the popular creed; but then you draw a distinction between a popular creed, as such, and the ‘ideas’ of the ‘thinkers.’ ‘What is any and every creed of the people,’ say you, ‘but the child of the wants and yearnings of humanity, fed at the breast of mere heated feeling, and nursed in the lap of an ignorance more or less profound?’ A popular creed, you admit, may have a restricted interest, as affording an insight into the intellectual condition of the people which holds it; but you deem it worth- less as a guide to absolute truth. The question, you maintain, is not, What was believed by the primitive Christians at large ? The question is, What was taught by the well-iustructed teachers of the early Church? Did the creed of the people, with all its impulsiveness and rhetoric, keep within the lines of the grave, reserved, measured, hesitating, cautious language of the higher minds of primitive Christendom ?
Now here, my brethren, I might fairly take exception to your distinction between a popular and an educated creed, as in fact inapplicable to the genius and circumstances of early Christianity. Are not your criteria really derived from your conceptions of modern societies, political and religious? It was once said of an ancient state, that each of its citizens was so identified with the corporate spirit and political action of his country, as to be in fact a statesman. And in the primitive Church, it was at least approximately true that every Christian, through the intensity and intelligence of the popular faith, was a sound divine. Men did not then die for rhetorical phrases, any more than they would do so now; and if the martyrs were, as a rule, men of the people, it is also notorious that not a few among them were bishops and theologians of repute. But that we may do justice to the objection, let us enquire briefly what the great Church teachers of the first three centuries have taught respecting the Higher and Eternal Nature of Jesus Christ.
And here let us remark, first of all, that a chain of representa- tive writers, reaching from the sub-apostolic to the Nicene age, does assert, in strong and explicit language, the belief of the Church that Jesus Christ is God.
Thus St. Ignatius of Antioch dwells upon our Lord’s Divine Nature as a possession of the Church, and of individual Chris- tians; he calls Jesus Christ ‘my God,’ ‘our God.’ ‘Jesus Christ our God,’ he says, ‘was carried in the womb of Μίαν Κ΄ The
k Ad Eph. 18: 6 yap Θεὸς ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς ὁ Χριστὸς ἐκυοφορήθη ὑπὸ Μαρίας, Cf. Ibid. 7: ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος Θεός. vo | Ee 2
420 Christ's Deity, how taught by fathers of
Blood of Jesus is the Blood of God1. Ignatius desires to imitate the sufferings of hisGod™. The sub-apostolic author of the Letter to Diognetus teaches that ‘the Father hath sent to men, not one of His servants, whether man or angel, but the very Architect and Author of all things, by Whom all has been ordered and settled, and on Whom all depends.... He has sent Him as being God’ And because He is God, His Advent is a real revelation of God; He has shewn Himself to men, and by faith men have seen and known their God® St. Polycarp appeals to Him as to the Everlasting Son of GodP; all things on earth and in heaven, all spirits obey Him4; He is the Author of our justification; He is the Object of our hope’. Justin Martyr maintains that the Word is the First-born of God, and so Gods; that He appeared in the Old Testament as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacobt; that He is sometimes called the Glory of the Lord, sometimes the Son, sometimes the Wisdom, sometimes the Angel, sometimes God%, St. Justin argues against Tryphon that if the Jews had attentively considered what the prophets have written, they would not have denied that Christ is God and the Only Son of the Unbegotten God . He maintains that the Word is Himself the witness to His own
1 Eph. 1: ἀναζωπυρήσαντες ἐν αἵματι τοῦ Θεοῦ.
m Rom. 6: ἐπιτρέψατέ μοι μιμητὴν εἶναι τοῦ πάθους τοῦ Θεοῦ μου.
n Ep. ad Diogn. 7: αὐτὸς ὁ παντοκράτωρ καὶ παντοκτίστης καὶ ἀόρατος @cds..... οὐ καθάπερ ἄν τις εἰκάσειεν, ἀνθρώποις ὑπηρέτην τινὰ πέμψας ἢ ἄγγελον, ἣ ἄρχοντα, ἢ τινὰ τῶν διεπόντων τὰ ἐπίγεια, ἢ τινὰ τῶν πεπιστευ- μένων τὰς ἐν οὐρανοῖς διοικήσεις, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων. . -- ὧς Θεὸν ἔπεμψεν, ὧς πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ἔπεμψεν, ὧς σώζων ἔπεμψεν.
ο Ep. ad Diogn. 6. 8: τίς γὰρ ὅλως ἀνθρώπων ἠπίστατο τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ Θεὸς, πρὶν αὐτὸν ἐλθεῖν .. .. ἀνθρώπων δὲ οὐδεὶς οὔτε εἶδεν οὔτε ἐγνώρισεν, αὐτὸς δὲ ἑαυτὸν ἐπέδειξεν, ἐπέδειξε δὲ διὰ πίστεως, ἧ μόνῃ Θεὸν ἰδεῖν συγκεχώρηται.
P Epist. Eccl. Smyrn. de Mart. S. Polye. n. 14.
@ Ad Phil. 2: “Qu ὑπετάγη τὰ πάντα ἐπουράνια καὶ ἐπίγεια" ᾧ πᾶσα πνοὴ λατρεύει. In Phil. 6: τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ Θεοῦ apparently refers to Christ.
F Ibid. 8: ἀδιαλείπτως οὖν προσκαρτερῶμεν τῇ ἐλπίδι ἡμῶν καὶ τῷ ἀῤῥαβῶνι τῆς δικαιοσύνης ἡμῶν, ὅς ἐστι Χριστὸς ᾿Ιησοῦς.
5. Apol. i, ἢ. 63: ὃς Adyos καὶ πρωτότοκος dy τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ Θεὸς ὑπάρχει.
ὁ Ibid.
« See the argument of the whole passage, Contr. Tryph. 57-61: ἀρχὴν πρὸ πάντων τῶν κτισμάτων ὃ Θεὸς γεγέννηκε δύναμίν τινα ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ λογικὴν, ἥτις καὶ δόξα Κυρίου ὑπὸ τοῦ Πνεύματος τοῦ ᾿Αγίου καλεῖται, ποτὲ δὲ Tids, ποτὲ δὲ Σοφία, ποτὲ δὲ “AyyeAdos, ποτὲ δὲ Θεός.
τ Thid. 126: εἰ νενοήκατε τὰ εἰρημένα ὑπὸ τῶν προφητῶν, οὐκ ἂν ἐξηρνεῖσθε αὐτὸν εἶναι Θεὸν τοῦ μόνου καὶ ἀγεννήτου Θεοῦ Ὑἱόν. Cf. Ibid. 63: προσκυνη- τός---καὶ Θεός. Justin expresses the truth of our Lord’s distinct Personality by the phrase Θεὸς ἕτερος ἀριθμῷ ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γνώμῃ (Ibid. 56). [
LECT.
the second and third centuries. 421
Divine Generation of the Father ¥Y; and that the reality of His Sonship is itself a sufficient evidence of His True Divinity 2. Tatian is aware that the Greeks deem the faith of the Church utter folly; but he nevertheless will assert that God has ap- peared on earth in a human form®. Athenagoras proclaims with special emphasis the oneness of the Word with the Father, as Creator and Ruler of the universe Ὁ, Melito of Sardis speaks of Jesus as being both God and Man®: ‘Christians,’ he says, ‘do not worship senseless stones, as do the heathen, but God and His Christ, Who is God the Word 4.’ St. Irenzeus perhaps re- presents the purest and deepest stream of apostolic doctrine which flowed from St. John through Polycarp into the Western Church. St. Irenzeus speaks of Christ as sharing the Name of the only true God. He maintains against the Valentinians that the Divine Name in its strictest sense was not given to any angel; and that when in Scripture the Name of God is given to any other than God Himself there is always some explanatory epithet or clause in order to shew that the full sense of the word is not intended®. None is directly called God save God the Father of all things and His Son Jesus Christ f. In both Testa- ments Christ is preached as God and Lord, as the King Eternal, as the Ounly-begotten, as the Word Incarnates. If Christ is
¥ Contr. Tryph. 61: μαρτυρήσει δέ μοι ὁ Λόγος τῆς σοφίας αὐτὸς ὧν οὗτος ὁ Θεὸς ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς τῶν ὅλων γεννηθείς.
5 Ibid. 126; Apolog. i. 63.
5. Adv. Grec.c. 21: οὐ yap μωραίνομεν, ἄνδρες Ἕλληνες, οὐδὲ λήρους ἀπαγ- γέλλομεν, Θεὸν ἐν ἀνθρώπου μορφῇ γεγονέναι. Cf. Ibid. n. 13: τοῦ πεπόν- θοτος Θεοῦ.
b Legat. n. 10: πρὸς αὐτοῦ γὰρ καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ πάντα ἐγένετο, ἑνὸς ὄντος τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Ὑἱοῦ,
¢ See Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 28. Compare the magnificent passage from St. Melito’s treatise on Faith, given in Cureton’s Spicilegium Syriacum, pp. 53, 54, and quoted by Westcott on the Canon, p. 196.
4 Apol. apud Auct. Chron. Pasch. (Gall. tom. i. p. 678): οὐκ ἐσμὲν λίθων οὐδεμίαν αἴσθησιν ἐχόντων θεραπευταὶ, ἀλλὰ μόνον Θεοῦ τοῦ πρὸ πάντων καὶ ἐπὶ πάντων, καὶ ἔτι τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ ὄντος Θεοῦ Λόγου πρὸ αἰώνων ἐσμὲν θρησκευταί. Routh, Rel. Sacr. i. 118, 133.
e Adv. Her. iii. 6, n. 3.
Ibid. iii. 6, n. 2: ‘Nemo igitur alius Deus nominatur, aut Dominus appellatur nisi qui est omnium Deus et Dominus, qui et Moysi dixit, Ego sum Qui sum,....et Hujus Filius Jesus Christus.’ Cf. iii. 8, n. 3: ‘Deus Solus.
ὁ Ibid. 111, 19, n. 2: ‘Quoniam autem Ipse proprié preter omnes qui fuerunt tunc homines, Deus, et Dominus, et Rex Aiternus et Unigenitus, et Verbum Incarnatum predicatur, et a prophetis omnibus et apostolis, et ab 7 Spiritu, adest videre omnibus qui vel modicum veritatis attigerint.’ vu
422 Christ’s Deity taught by Origen,
worshipped h, if Christ forgives sinsi, if Christ is Mediator be- tween God and mank, this is because He is really a Divine Person.
And if from Gaul we pass to Africa, and from the second to the third century, the force and number of primitive testimonies to the Divinity of our Lord increase upon us so rapidly as to render it impossible that we should do more than glance at a few of the more prominent. At Alexandria we find Clement speaking of That Living God Who suffered and Who is adored}; of the Word, Who is both God and man, and the Author of all blessings™; of God the Saviour, Who saves us, as being the Author and Archetype of all existing beings. Clement alludes to our Lord’s Divinity as explaining His equality with the Father 9, His prescience during His Human Life», His revela- tion of the Father to mena. Origen maintains Christ’s true Divinity against the contemptuous criticisms of Celsus™. Origen more than once uses the expression ‘the God Jesus’. He teaches that the Word, the Image of God, is Godt; that the Son is as truly Almighty as the Father"; that Christ is the Very Word, the Absolute Wisdom, the Absolute Truth, the Absolute Righteousness Itselfx. Christ, according to Origen, possesses all the attributes of Deity¥; God is contemplated in
b Adv. Her. iii. 9, 2. ‘Thus [obtulerunt magi] quoniam Deus.’
1 hid. v. 17, n. 3. E Ibid. iii. 18, 7.
1 Protrept. 10, § 106: πίστευσον, ἄνθρωπε, ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ Θεῷ, TH παθόντι καὶ προσκυνουμένῳ Θεῷ ζῶντι.
m Tbid. 1, § 7: αὐτὸς οὗτος ὃ Λόγος, & μόνος ἄμφω, Θεός τε καὶ ἄνθρωπος, ἁπάντων ἡμῖν αἴτιος ἀγαθῶν.
» Strom. ii. 9, 8 45: Θεῷ τῷ Σωτῆρι; Thid. v. 6, § 38: ὁ Θεὸς Σωτὴρ κεκλη- μένος, ἣ τῶν ὅλων ἀρχὴ, ἥτις ἀπεικόνισται μὲν ἐκ τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου πρώτη καὶ πρὸ αἰώνων, τετύπωκεν δὲ τὰ μέθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν ἅπαντα γενόμενα.
° Protrept. 10, § 110: ὅ φανερώτατος ὃυτως Θεὸς, ὁ τῷ Δεσπότῃ τῶν ὅλων ἐξισωθείς.
P Quis Div. Salv. 6: προεῖδε ὡς Θεὸς, ἃ μέλλει διερωτηθήσεσθαι.
4 Ped. i. 8. We know God from our knowledge of Jesus—é« τρυτάνης ἰσοσθενοῦς.
τ Contr. Cels. ii. 9, 16 sqq.; vii. 53, etc. But iii. 28 is less satisfactory.
® Θεὸν Ἰησοῦν, Ibid. v. 51; vi. 66. t Select. in Gen. In Gen. ix. 6.
ἃ Prine. 1. ii.n. 10: ‘Ut autem unam eandemque Omnipotentiam Patris et Filii esse cognoscas, sicut unus atque idem est cum Patre Deus et Domi- nus, audi hoe modo Johannem in Apocalypsi dicentem: Hee dixit Dominus Deus, qui est et qui erat, et qui venturus est, Omnipotens; qui enim ven- turus est, quis est alius nisi Christus.’
x Contr. Cels. iii. 41: αὐτόλογος, αὐτοσοφία, αὐτοαλήθεια. Ibid. v. 39: αὐτοδικαιοσύνη“.
¥ In Jerem, Hom, viii. n, a: πάντα γὰρ ὅσα τοῦ Θεοῦ, τοιαῦτα (i αὐτῷ
LECT,
i
and Tertullian. 423
the contemplation of Christ’. Christ’s Incarnation is like the economical language of parables which describe Almighty God as if He were a human being. So real is Christ’s Deity, that His assumption of our Nature, like the speech of a parable, is to be looked upon as only a condescension to finite intelligences*. There is no Highest Good in existence which is superior to Christ >; as Very God, Christ is present in all the world; He is present with every man®. Origen continually closes his Homilies with a doxology to our Lord; and he can only account for refusal to believe in His Divinity by the hypothesis of some kind of mental obliquity4. Tertullian’s language is full of Punic fire, but in speaking of Christ’s Divinity he is dealing with opponents who would force him to be accurate, even if there were not a higher motive for accuracy. Tertullian antici- pates the Homoousion in terms: Christ, he gays, is called God, by reason of His oneness of substance with God*. Christ alone is begotten of Godf; He is God and Lord over all mens. Ter- tullian argues at length that an Incarnation of God is possibleh; he dwells upon its consequences in language which must appear paradoxical to unbelief or half-belief, but which is natural to a sincere and intelligent faith in its reality. Tertullian speaks of
ἔστι, ὃ Χριστός ἐστι σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ. ... αὐτὸς ἀπολύτρωσις, αὐτὸς φρόνησίς ἐστι Θεοῦ.
* In Joan, ὑ. xxxii. n, 18: θεωρεῖται γὰρ ἐν τῷ Λόγῳ, ὄντι Θεῷ καὶ εἰκόνι τοῦ Θεοῦ ἀοράτου.
5 In Matt. t. xvii. ἢ. 20: ὥσπερ ὁ Θεὸς ἀνθρώπους οἰκονομῶν ὡς ἐν παρα- βολαῖς ἄνθρωπος λέγεται, τάχα δέ πως καὶ γίνεται" οὕτως καὶ 6 Σωτὴρ προηγου- μένως Ὑἱὸς dy τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Θεός ἐστιν, καὶ Ὑἱὸς τῆς ἀγάπης αὐτοῦ, καὶ εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου" οὐ μένει δὲ ἐν ᾧ ἐστι προηγουμένως, ἀλλὰ γίνεται κατ᾽ οἰκονομίαν τοῦ ἐν παραβολαῖς λεγομένου ἀνθρώπου ὄντως δὲ Θεοῦ, Ὑἱὸς ἀνθρώπου κατὰ τὸ μιμεῖσθαι, ὅταν ἀνθρώπους οἰκονομῇ, τὸν Θεὸν λεγόμενον ἐν παραβολαῖς καὶ γινόμενον ἄνθρωπόν.
> In Joan. t. i. π. 11: οὐ σιωπητέον ... τὸν μετὰ τὸν Πατέρα τῶν ὅλων Θεὸν Λόγον, οὐδενὸς γὰρ ἔλαττον ἀγαθοῦ καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀγαθόν.
¢ Thid. ὁ. vi. n. 15: δοξολογίαν περὶ τῆς προηγουμένης οὐσίας Χριστοῦ διη- γεῖται, ὅτι δύναμιν τοσαύτην ἔχει, ὡς καὶ ἀόρατος εἶναι τῇ θειότητι αὐτοῦ, παρὼν παντὶ ἀνθρώπῳ, παντὶ δὲ καὶ τῷ ὅλῳ κόσμῳ συμπαρεκτεινόμενος.
4 Contr. Cels. iii. 29.
® Apol. 6. 21: ‘Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione genera- tum, et idcirco Filium Dei, et Deum dictum ex unitate substantia.’ See Lect. VII. p.390. Ibid.: ‘Quod de Deo profectum est, Deus est, et Dei Filius, et Unus ambo.’ Adv. Prax. 4: ‘Filium non aliunde deduco, sed de substantia Patris.’ Ibid. 3: ‘Consortibus [Filio et Spiritu Sancto] substantie Patris.’
f Adv. Prax. 7: ‘Solus ex Deo genitus.’
& Adv. Jud. 7: ‘Christus omnibus Deus et Dominus est.’ Cf. ὁ. 12.
h Cf. De Carne Christi, c. 3, 4. vu |
424 Various indirect testimontes of the third century.
>
demption*, Christians, he says, believe in a God Who was dead, and Who nevertheless reigns for ever!. St. Cyprian argues that those who believe in Christ’s power to make a temple of the human soul must needs believe in His Divinity; nothing but utter blindness or wickedness can account for a refusal to admit this truth™. St. Hippolytus had urged it against Jews and Sabellians"; Arnobius determines to indent it upon the pagan mind by dint of constant repetition®. Theonas of Alex- andria instructs a candidate for the imperial librarianship how he may gradually teach it to his pagan masterP. Dionysius of Alexandria vehemently repudiates as a cruel scandal the report of his having denied 104, St. Peter of Alexandria would prove it from an examination of Christ’s miracles'. For the rest, St. Methodius of Tyre may represent the faith of western
a Crucified Godi; of the Blood of God, as the price of our re-
4 Adv. Marc. ii. 27: ‘Deum crucifixum.’
k Ad Uxor. ii. 3: ‘Non sumus nostri, sed pretio empti, et quali pretio? Sanguine Dei.’
1 Adv. Marc. ii. 16: ‘Christianorum est etiam Deum mortuum credere, et tamen viventem in evo evorum.”
m Ep. 73, ad Jubaianum, 12: ‘Si peccatorum remissam consecutus est ... et templum Dei factum est, quero cujus Dei? Si Creatoris, non potuit in eum qui non credidit. Si Christi, nec ejus fieri potest templum qui negat Deum Christum.’ Cf. Ep. 74, c. 6: ‘Que verd est anime cacitas, que pravitas, tidei unitatem de Deo Patre, et de Jesu Christi Domini et Dei nostri traditione venientem nolle agnoscere,’ &c.
n Ady. Jud. c. 6: Θεὸς ὧν ἀληθινῶς. Contr. Noet. c. 6: οὗτος ὃ ὧν ἐπὶ πάντων Θεύς ἐστιν᾽ λέγει yap οὕτω μετὰ παῤῥησίας" Πάντα μοι παραδέδοται ὑπὸ τοῦ Πατρός. “ὃ dv ἐπὶ πάντων Θεὸς εὐλογητὸς, γεγένηται, καὶ ἄνθρωπος γενόμενος, Θεός ἐστιν εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνα. Apud Routh, Opusce. i. p. 59. And c. 17: Θεὸς Λόγος am οὐρανῶν κατῆλθεν εἰς τὴν ἁγίαν παρθένον. Adv. Beron. et Helic. ἢ. 2: 6 τῶν ὅλων Θεός is later: cf. Déll. Hipp. and Call. E. T. p. 295. In Eus. v. 28, He is called our εὔσπλαγχνος Ocds.
° Adv. Gent. ii. 60: ‘Ideo Christus, licet vobis invitis, Deus; Deus inquam Christus—hoe enim sepe dicendum est, ut infidelium dissiliat et disrumpatur auditus—Dei principis jussione loquens sub hominis forma.’ Ibid. i. 53: ‘Deus ille sublimis fuit; Deus radice ab intima, Deus ab incognitis regnis, et ab omnium principe Deus sospitator est missus.’
P Apud Routh, Rel. Sacr. iii. p. 443; Ep. ad Lucian. Cubicul. Preepos. ὁ. 7: ‘Interdum et divinas scripturas laudare conabitur .... laudabitur et interim Evangelium Apostolusque pro divinis oraculis: insurgere poterit Christi mentio, explicabitur paullatim ejus sola Divinitas.’
4 Ep. ad Dionys. Rom. apud 8. Athan. Op. tom. i. p. 255: καὶ δι ἄλλης ἐπιστολῆς ἔγραψα, ἐν οἷς ἤλεγξα Kal ὃ προφέρουσιν ἔγκλημα Kat’ ἐμοῦ, ψεῦδος ὃν, ὡς οὐ λέγοντος τὸν Χριστὸν ὁμοούσιον εἶναι τῷ Θεῷ.
τ Apud Routh, Rel. Sac. iv. 48: τὰ δὲ σημεῖα πάντα ἃ ἐποίησε καὶ αἱ δυνάμεις δεικνῦσιν αὐτὸν Θεὸν εἶναι ἐνανθρωπήσαντα. τὰ συναμφότερα τοίνυν δείκνυται" ὅτι Θεὸς ἦν φύσει, καὶ γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος φύσει.
LECT.
ἀν anes oa a
7 the language of the Fathers ‘mere rhetoric’? 425
Asia’; the martyred Felix that of the Roman chairt; and, to omit other illustrations ἃ, the letter of the Council to Paulus of Samosata summarizes the belief both of eastern and western Christendom during the latter half of the third century *.
This language of the preceding centuries does in effect and substance anticipate the Nicene decision. When once the question of Christ’s Divinity had been raised in the metaphysical form which the Homoousion presupposes, no other answer was possible, unless the Nicene fathers had been prepared to renounce the most characteristic teaching of their predecessors. Certainly it did not occur to them that the Catholic language of earlier writers had been ‘mere rhetoric,’ and could, as such, be disre- garded. What is the real meaning of this charge of ‘rhetoric’ which is brought so freely against the early Christian fathers ? It really amounts to saying that a succession of men who were at least intelligent and earnest, were nevertheless, when writing upon the subject which lay nearest to their hearts, wholly unable to command that amount of jealous self-control, and cautious accuracy in the use of language, which might save them from misrepresenting their most fundamental convictions. Let us ask ourselves whether this judgment be morally probable 1 Doubtless the fathers felt strongly, and, being sincere men, they wrote as they felt. But they were not always exhorting or declaiming or perorating: they wrote, at times, in the temper of cold unimpassioned reasoners, who had to dispute their ground inch by inch with pagan or heretical opponents. Tertullian is not always ‘fervid’; St. Chrysostom is not always eloquent; Origen does not allegorize under all circumstances ; St. Ambrose can interpretScripture literally and morally as well as mystically. The fathers were not a uniform series of poets or transcenden- talists. Many of them were eminently practical, or, if you will,
53. De Symeon. et Anna, n. 6: Σὺ Θεὸς πρῶτος, ἔμπροσθέν σου οὐκ ἐγεννήθη θεὸς ἄλλος ἐκ Θεοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ μετὰ σοῦ οὐκ ἔσται ἄλλος Ὑἱὸς τῷ Πατρὶ ὁμοούσιος καὶ ὅμότιμος. n. 8: διὰ τοῦ μονογενοῦς καὶ ἀπαραλλάκτου καὶ ὁμοουσίου Παιδός σου τὴν λύτρωσιν ἡμῖν ποιησάμενος. D. 14: φῶς ἀληθινὸν ἐκ φωτὸς ἀληθινοῦ, Θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ. Quoted by Klee.
* Ep. ad Maximin. Epp. et Cler. Alex.: ‘De Verbi autem Incarnatione et fide credimus in Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, ex Virgine Maria natum, quod Ipse est sempiternus Dei Filius et Verbum, non autem homo a Deo assumptus, ut alius sit ab Illo; neque enim hominem assumpsit Dei Filius, ut alius ab ipso exsistat. Sed cum perfectus Deus esset, factus est simul Homo Perfectus ex Virgine Incarnatus.’ Labbe et Coss. Cone. iii. 511.
ἃ Cf. more especially St.Greg. Thaumaturgus, Orat. Panegyr. in Ori- genem, n. 4; Lact. Div. Inst. iv. 22, 29.
* Labbe et Coss. i, 845-850. vu |
426 Doubtful statements tn ante-Nicene writers.
prosaic ; and they continually wrote in view of hostile criticism, as well as in obedience to strong personal convictions. To men like Justin, Origen, and Cyprian the question of the Divinity of our Lord was one of an interest quite as pressing and practical as any that moves the leaders of political or commercial or scien- tific opinion in the England of to-day. And when men write with their lives in their hands, and moreover believe that the endless happiness of their fellow-creatures depends in no slight degree upon the conscientious accuracy with which they express themselves, they are not likely to yield to the temptation of writing for the miserable object of mere rhythmical effect ;—they may say what others deem strong and startling things without being, in the depreciatory sense of the term, ‘ rhetorical.’
But,—to be just,—those who insist most eagerly upon the ‘rhetorical’ shortcomings of the fathers, are not accustomed to deny to them under all circumstances the credit of writing with intelligence and upon principle. If, for example, a father uses expressions, however inadvertently or provisionally, which appear to contradict the general current of Church teaching, he is at once welcomed as a serious writer who is entitled to marked and respectful attention. Critics who lay most stress upon the charge of unprincipled rhetoric as brought against the fathers are often anxious to take advantage of the argument which screens the fathers and which they themselves reject. ‘Give that argument,’ they say, ‘its full and honest scope. If the Nicene fathers were not mere rhetoricians, neither were the ante-Nicene. If Athanasius, Basil, and the Gregories are to be taken at their word, so are Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, and their contem- poraries. If the orthodox language of one period is not rhetoric, then the doubtful or unorthodox language of another period is not rhetoric. If for the moment we admit the principle upon which you are insisting, we claim that it shall be applied impar- tially,—to the second century as to the fourth, to the language which is said to favour Arius, no less than to the language which is insisted upon by the friends of Athanasius.’
‘Is it not notorious,’ men ask, ‘that some ante-Nicene writers at times use language which falls short of, if it does not contra-
dict, the doctrine of the Nicene Council? Does not St. Justin |
Martyr, for instance, speak of the Son as subserving the Father’s Willy? nay, as being begotten of Him at His Will%? Does not
¥ Tryph. 126: ὑπηρετῶν τῇ βουλῇ αὐτοῦ. Cf. Athan, Treat, i. 118, note ἢ. * Ibid. 128. But cf. Athan. Treat. ii. p. 486, note g. [ LECT.
ERCP os AR Se τέ ΠΥ
PSA
ares
Doubtful statements in ante-Necene writers. 427
Justin even speak of Christ as “another God under the Creator®?” Do not Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, and St. Hippolytus apply the language of Scripture respecting the generation of the Word to His manifestation at the creation of the world, as a dis- tinct being from God? Do they not so distinguish between the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the λόγος προφορικὸς as to imply that the Word was hypostatized only at the creation»? Does not Clement of Alexandria implicitly style the Word the Second Principle of things®? Does he not permit himself to say that the Nature of the Son is most close to the Sole Almighty One@? Although Origen first spoke of the Saviour as being “ ever-begotten ¢,” has he not, amidst much else that is questionable, contrasted the Son, as the immediate Creator of the world, with the Father as the original Creatorf? Did not Dionysius of Alexandria use language which he was obliged to account for, and which is re- pudiated by St. Basile? Was not Lucian of Antioch excommu- nicated, and, martyr though he was, regarded as the founder of an heterodox sect»? Is not Tertullian said to be open to the charge that he combated Praxeas with arguments which did the work of Ariusi? Has he not, in his anxiety to avoid the Monarchianist confusion of Persons, spoken of the Son as a “derivation from, and portion of, the whole Substance of the Father k,” or even as if He once was not!? Does any Catholic writer undertake to apologise for the expressions of Lactan-_ tius. Has not recent criticism tended somewhat to enhance the
* Dial. contr. Tryph. c. 56: Θεὸς ἕτερος ὑπὸ τὸν ποιητήν.
> Petav. 3.6; Newman’s Arians, p.106. But see Athan. Treat. i. 113, note z; and Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. iii. 5. 6. 7, 8.
© Strom. lib. vii. 3, p. 509, δρᾷ Pet.: δεύτερον αἴτιον.
4 Thid. 2, p. 504: ἡ Ὑἱοῦ φύσις, ἡ τῷ μόνῳ Παντοκράτορι προσεχεστάτη. Bull, Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 6, 6.
© ὁ Σωτὴρ ἀεὶ γεννᾶται. Apud Routh, Rel. Sacr. iv. 354.
1 Orig. contr. Cels. vi. 60, apud Petav. de Trin. i. 4, 5: τὸν μὲν προσεχῶς δημιουργὸν εἶναι τὸν Ὑἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγον καὶ ὡσπερεὶ αὐτουργὸν τοῦ κόσμου" τὸν δὲ Πάτερα.... εἶναι πρώτως δημιουργόν.
ε Cf. Pet. de Trin. i. 4, 10; St. Bas. Ep. 9. But cf. Athan. Sent. Dion.
h Alexander ap. Theodoret. Hist. lib. i. c. 4; Pet. de Trin. i. 4, 13.
! Petavius attacks him especially on the score of this treatise. De Trin. i. 5, 2: ‘Opinionem explicat suam,’ says Petavius, ‘que etiam Arianorum heresim impietate et absurditate superat.’ For a fairer estimate, see Klee, Dogmengeschichte, ii. c. 2.
® Adv. Prax. c.g: ‘Pater enim tota Substantia est, Filius verd derivatio totius et portio.” See the remarks of Baur, Dogmengeschichte, i. 444, to which, however, a study of the context will yield a sutticient answer; e.g. c. 8: ‘Sermo in Patre semper... . nunquam separatus a Patre.’
᾿ ΠῚ Hermog. 6. 3. See Bull, Def. iii. 10, Comp. Ibid. ii. 7.
vil
428Someante-Nicenewriterswhoheldtheper fect faith
reputation of Petavius at the expense of Bishop Bull™? Nay, is net Bull’s great work itself an illustration of what is at least the prima jacte state of the case? Does it not presuppose a consider- able apparent discrepancy between some ante-Nicene and the post-Nicene writers? Is it not throughout explanatory and apologetic Can we deny that out of the long list of writers whom Bull reviews, he has, for one cause or another, to explain the language of nearly one-half?’
This line of argument in an earlier guise has been discussed so fully by a distinguished predecessor Β in the present Leeture, that it may suffice to notice very summarily the considerations which must be taken into account, if justice is to be done, both to its real force and to the limits which ought to be, but which are not always, assigned to it.
(a) Undoubtedly, it should be frankly granted that some of the ante-Nicene writers do at times employ terms which, judged by a Nicene standard, must be pronounced unsatisfactory. You might add to the illustrations which have already been quoted ; and you might urge that, if they admit of a Catholic interpreta- tion, they do not always invite one. For in truth these ante- Nicene fathers were feeling their way, not towards the substance of the faith, which they possessed in its fulness, but towards that intellectual mastery both of its relationship to outer forms of thought, and of its own internal harmonies and system, which is obviously a perfectly distinct gift from the simple possession of the faith itself. As Christians they possessed the faith itself. The faith, delivered once for all, had been given to the Church in its completeness by the apostles. But the finished intellectual survey and treatment of the faith is a superadded acquirement ; it is the result of conflict with a hostile criticism, and of devout reflections matured under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth. Knowledge of the drift and scope of particular lines of specula- tion, knowledge of the real force and value of a new terminology, comes, whether to a man or to a society, in the way of education and after the discipline of partial and temporary failure. Heresy indirectly contributed to form the Church’s mind: it gave point and sharpness to current conceptions of truth by its mutilations and denials; it illustrated the fatal tendencies of novel lines of speculation, or even of misleading terms; it unwittingly forced
m The writer himself would on no account be understood to assent to this opinion. Even in criticizing Bull, Dr. Newman admits that he does his work ‘triumphantly.’ Developm. p. 159. n Dr, ἘΣ
LECT.
SERA Sid SRS ea a haart
Sec
had not mastered all its intellectual bearings. 429
on an elucidation of the doctrines of the Church by its subtle and varied opposition. But before heresy had thus accomplished its providential work, individual Church teachers might in per- fect good faith attempt to explain difficulties, or to win op- ponents, by enterprising speculations, in this or that direction, which were not yet shewn to be perilous to truth. Not indeed that the Universal Church, in her collective capacity, was ever committed to any of those less perfect statements of doctrine which belong to the ante-Nicene period. Particular fathers or schools of thought within her might use terms and illustrations which she afterwards disavowed ; but then, they had no Divine guarantee of inerrancy, such as had been vouchsafed to the entire body of the faithful. They were in difficult and untried circum- stances; they were making experiments in unknown regions of thought; their language was tentative and provisional. Com- pared with the great fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, _ who spoke when collective Christendom had expressed or was expressing its mind in the Gicumenical Councils, and who there- fore more nearly represented it, and were in a certain sense its accepted organs, such ante-Nicene writers occupy a position inferior, if not in love and honour, yet certainly in weight of authority. If without lack of reverence to such glorious names the illustration is permissible, the Alexandrian teachers of the second and third centuries were, relatively to their successors of the age of the Councils, in the position of young or half-educated persons, who know at bottom what they mean, who know yet more distinctly what they do not mean, but who as yet have not so measured and sounded their thoughts, or so tested the instru- ment by which thought finds expression, as to avoid misrepre- senting their meaning more or less considerably, before they succeed in conveying it with accuracy. When, for example, St. Justin, and after him Tertullian, contrast the visibility of the Son with the invisibility of the Father, all that their language is probably intended to convey is that the Son had from everlasting designed to assume a nature which would render Him visible. When again St. Justin speaks of the Son as a Minister of God, this expression connects Him without explanation with the ministering Angel of the Old Testament. Yet it need involve nothing beyond a reference to His humiliation in the days of His Flesh. A like interpretation may fairly be put upon the ultra- subordinationist terms used by Origen and Tertullian in dealing with two forms of heretical Monarchianism ; and upon the mis- sn ine phrases of the saintly Dionysius which expressed Vo
430A nte-Nicenesubordinationist languageexplained
his resistance to a full-blown Sabellianism®, Language was employed which obviously admitted of being misunderstood. It would not have been used at a later period. ‘It may be,’ says St. Jerome, with reference to some of the ante-Nicene fathers, ‘that they simply fell into errors, or that they wrote in a sense distinct from that which lies on the surface of their writings, or that the copyists have gradually corrupted their writings. Or at any rate before that Arius, like “the sickness that de- stroyeth in the noonday,” was born in Alexandria, these writers spoke, in terms which meant no harm, and which were less cautious than such as would be used now, and which accord- ingly are open to the unfriendly construction which ill-disposed persons put upon them P.’
Indeed it is observable that the tentative and perplexing Christological language which was used by earlier fathers, at a time when the quicksands of religious thought had not yet been explored by the shipwrecks of heresy, does not by any means point, as is sometimes assumed, in an Arian direction exclusively. If, for instance, a few phrases in St. Justin may be cited by Arianism with a certain plausibility, a similar appeal to him is open from the opposite direction of Sabellianism. In his anxiety to discountenance Emanatist conceptions of the relation of the Logos to the Father, Justin hastily refers the beginning of the Personal Subsistence of the Word to revelation or to the creation, and he accordingly speaks of the Word as being caused by the Will of God. But Justin did not place the Son on the footing of a creature; he did not hold a strict subordinationism 1%; since he teaches distinctly that the Logos is of the Essence of God, that He is a Power eternally begotten of God Himself'. Thus St. Justin’s language at first sight seems to embrace two opposite and not yet refuted heresies: both can appeal to him with equal justice, or rather with equal want of 105.
© Petav. de Trin. i. 4, Io.
P Apolog. adv. Ruffin. ii. Oper. tom. iv. p. fi. p. 409, apud Petav. de Trin. i. 1: ‘Fieri potest, ut vel simpliciter erraverint, vel alio sensu scripserint, vel a librariis imperitis eorum paullatim scripta corrupta sint. Vel certé, antequam in Alexandria, quasi demonium meridianum, Arius nasceretur, innocenter queedam et minus cautd locuti sunt, et que non possint perver- sorum hominum calumniam declinare.’ Cf. St. Athan. contr. Ar. iii. 59.
4 Dorner, Person Christi, Erster Theil, p. 426, n. 22.
τ Contr. Tryph. c. 61: πρὸ πάντων τῶν κτισμάτων ὁ Θεὸς γεγέννηκε δύναμίν τινα ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ λογικήν.
5. Dorner, Person Christi, Erster Theil, p. 426. See the whole passage, in which this is very ably argued against Semisch. [ a
LE Φ
by the Church's duties towards Polytheism. 43
(8) Reflect further that a doctrine may be held in its integrity, and yet be presented to men of two different periods, under aspects in many ways different. So it was with the doctrine of Christ’s Divinity, in the ante-Nicene as compared with the post- Nicene age of its promulgation. When the Gospel was still struggling with paganism throughout the empire, the Church undoubtedly laid the utmost possible stress upon the Unity of the Supreme Being. For this was the primal truth which she had to assert most emphatically in the face of polytheism. In order to do this it was necessary to insist with particular em- phasis upon those relations which secure and explain the Unity of the Divine Persons in the Blessed Trinity. That, in the ineffable mystery of the Divine Life, the Father is the Fount or Source of Godhead, from Whom by eternal Generation and Procession respectively, the Son and the Spirit derive their Personal Being, was the clear meaning of the theological state- ~ ments of the New Testament. When, then, Origen speaks of the Father as the ‘first Godt,’ he means what the Apostle meant by the expression, ‘One God and Father of all, Who is above all” He implicitly means that, independently of all time and inferiority, the Son’s Life was derived from, and, wm that sense, subordinate to the Life of the Father. Now it is obvious that to speak with perfect accuracy upon such a subject, so as to express the ideas of derivation and subordinateness, while avoid- ing the cognate but false and disturbing ideas of posteriority in time and inferiority of nature, was difficult. For as yet the dogmatic language of the Church was comparatively unfixed, and a large discretion was left to individual teachers. They used material images to express what was in their thoughts. These images, drawn from created things, were of course not adequate to the Uncreated Object Which they were designed to illustrate. Yet they served to introduce an imperfect conception of It 4,
Ὁ Contr. Cels. vi. 47: ὃ πρῶτος καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεός.
Ὁ “In some instances [of ante-Nicene language] which are urged, it is quite obvious on the surface that the writer is really wishing to express the idea of the Son’s generation being absolutely coeval with the Eternal Being of the Father, and is using the examples from the natural world, where the derivation is most immediately consequent upon the existence of the thing derived from, in order broadly to impress that idea of coeval upon the reader’s mind, ‘The Son,” says St.Clement of Alexandria, ‘issues from the Father quicker than light from the sun.” Here, however, the very aim of the illustration to express simultaneousness is turned against it, and special attention is called to the word “ quicker,” as if the writer i degrees of quickness in his mind, and only made the Son’s Vil
432 Real mind of the ante-Nicene Church declared,
The fathers who employed them, having certain Emanatist theories in view, repeatedly urged that the Son is derived from the Father tn accordance with the Divine attributes of Will and Power. Looking to our human experience, we conceive of will as prior to that which it calls into being; but in God the Eternal Will and the Eternal Act are coincident; and the phrase of St. Justin which refers the existence of the Logos to the Divine Will is only misunderstood because it is construed in an anthropomorphic sense. In like manner the Alexandrian dis- tinction between the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the λόγος προφορικὸς fell in naturally with the subordinationist teaching in the ante- Nicene Church. It could, in a sense, be said that the Son left the Bosom of the Father when He went forth to create, and the act of creation was thus described as a kind of second generation of the Son. But the expression did not imply, as it has been un- - , , derstood to imply, a denial of His eternal Generation, and of His Por ἜΈΈΞΞΕΞΕΕΕ. unending Subsistence in God. This indeed is plain from the very writers who use it*. Generally speaking, the early fathers are bent on insisting on the subordination (κατὰ τάξιν) of the Son, as protecting and explaining the doctrine of the Divine Unity. If some of these expressed themselves too incautiously or boldly, the general truth itself was never dis- credited in the Church. Subordinationism was indeed allowed to fall somewhat into the shade, when the decline of paganism made it possible, and the activities of Arianism made it necessary, to contemplate Jesus Christ in the absoluteness of His Personal Godhead rather than in that relation of a sub- ordinate, in the sense of an eternally derived subsistence, in which He also stands to the Eternal Father. But Bishop Bull has shewn how earnestly such a doctrine of subordination was also taught in the Nicene period; and at this day we confess it in the Nicene Creed itself. And the stress which was laid upon it in the second and third centuries, and which goes far to explain much of the language which is sometimes held to be of doubtful orthodoxy, is in reality perfectly consistent with the broad fact that from the first the general current of Church language pro- claims the truth that Jesus Christ is God. (y) For that truth was beyond doubt the very central feature of the teaching of the ante-Nicene Church, even when Church
generation from His source “quicker” than that of light from its source, ; and not absolutely coeval,’ Mozley on the Theory of Development, 7 p. 183. ἵ
5 See the examination of passages in Newman’s Arians, pp. 215-218. :
[ LzoT.
whenever Christ’s Godhead was calledin question. 433
teachers had not yet recognised all that it necessarily involved, and had not yet elaborated the accurate statement of its rela- tionship to other truths around it. The writers whose less- considered expressions are brought forward in favour of an opposite conclusion do not sustain it. If, as we have seen, Justin may be quoted by those who push the Divinity of Christ to the denial of His Personal distinction from the Father Y, no less than by Arianizers; so also, as Petavius himself admits 2, do both Origen and Tertullian anticipate the very language of the Nicene Creed. Nor, when their expressions are fair ly examined, can it be denied that the writers oh.—-——
. yeu w wivine Nature, he at once auuressed to Dionysius of Rome an explanation which is in fact an anticipation of the language of Athanasius®. When Paulus of Samosata appeared in one of the first sees of Christendom, the universal excitement, the emphatic protests, the final, mea- sured, and solemn condemnation which he provoked, proved how deeply the Divinity of Jesus Christ was rooted in the heart of the Church of the third century. Moreover, unless Christ’s absolute Godhead had been thus a matter of Catholic belief, the rise of such a heresy as that of Sabellianism would have been. im- possible. Sabellianism overstates that which Arianism denies. Sabellianism presupposes the truth of Christ’s Godhead, which, if we may so speak, it exaggerates even to the point of rejecting
Υ Petav. de Trin. i. 6, 6. Ὁ Τρ, 1..., Ὁ:.5, 2 * Kus. Hist. Eccl. v. 24. > Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 28: τῆς ἀρνησιθέου ἀποστασίας. Epiphan. Her. 54. © See St. Athan, de Sent Dionysii, c. 4, sqq. vu | Ff
;
432 Real mind of the ante-Nicene Church declared,
The fathers who employed them, having certain Emanatist theories in view, repeatedly urged that the Son is derived from the Father in accordance with the Divine attributes of Will and Power. Looking to our human experience, we conceive of will as prior to that which it calls into being; but in God the Eternal Will and the Eternal Act are coincident; and the phrase of St. Justin which refers the existence of the Logos to the Divine Will is only misunderstood because it is construed in an anthropomorphic sense. In like manner the Alexandrian dis- tinction between the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and the λόγος προφορικὸς fell in naturally with the subordinationist teaching in the ante- Nicene Church. It could, in a sense, be said that the Son left the Bosom of the Father when He went forth to create, and the act of creation was thus described as a kind of second generation of
the Son. But the expression did not imply, as it has been un- -
derstood to imply, a denial of His eternal Generation, and of His
genre prasibogoton, unending Subsistence in God. This indeed is plain from the very writers who use it*. Generally speaking, the
POE τ KCAL Le
ERRATUM.
Page 432, line 18 from top, for “unbegotten μὲ vead “ unbeginning.”
Ὁ uUUUAY, 15 Iu reality perrectiy consistent with the broad tact that from the first the general current of Church language pro- claims the truth that Jesus Christ is God.
(y) For that truth was beyond doubt the very central feature of the teaching of the ante-Nicene Church, even when Church
generation from His source “quicker” than that of light from its source, and not absolutely coeval,’ Mozley on the Theory of Development, p. 183. ® See the examination of passages in Newman’s Arians, pp. δὲν LECT,
ἫΝ
whenever Christ’s Godhead was called in question. 433
teachers had not yet recognised all that it necessarily involved, and had not yet elaborated the accurate statement of its rela- tionship to other truths around it. The writers whose less- considered expressions are brought forward in favour of an opposite conclusion do not sustain it. If, as we have seen, Justin may be quoted by those who push the Divinity of Christ to the denial of His Personal distinction from the Father Y, no less than by Arianizers; so also, as Petavius himself admits 2, do both Origen and Tertullian anticipate the very language of the Nicene Creed. Nor, when their expressions are fairly examined, can it be denied that the writers who imported the philo- sophical category of the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and προφορικὸς into Christian theology did really believe with all their hearts in the eternal Generation of the Word. For it should especially be remarked that when the question of our Lord’s Divinity was broadly proposed to the mind of the ante-Nicene Church, the answer was not a doubtful or hesitating one. Any recognised assault upon it stirred the heart of the Church to energetic protest. When Victor of Rome excommunicated the Quarto- decimans, his censures were answered either by open remon- strance or by tacit disregard, throughout Gaul and the East. When he cut off Theodotus from the communion of the Church, the act commanded universal acquiescence ; the Christian heart thrilled with indignation at ‘the God-denying apostasy’ of the tanner of Byzantium >. When Dionysius of Alexandria, writing with incautious zeal against the Sabellians, was charged with heterodoxy on the subject of our Lord’s Divine Nature, he at once addressed to Dionysius of Rome an explanation which is in fact an anticipation of the language of Athanasius®. When Paulus of Samosata appeared in one of the first sees of Christendom, the universal excitement, the emphatic protests, the final, mea- sured, and solemn condemnation which he provoked, proved how deeply the Divinity of Jesus Christ was rooted in the heart of the Church of the third century. Moreover, unless Christ’s absolute Godhead had been thus a matter of Catholic belief, the rise of such a heresy as that of Sabellianism would have been. im- possible. Sabellianism overstates that which Arianism denies. Sabellianism presupposes the truth of Christ’s Godhead, which, if we may so speak, it exaggerates even to the point of rejecting
Υ Petav. de Trin. i. 6, 6. ® Ibid. i. 4, 6; 5, 3. * Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 24. > Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 28: τῆς ἀρνησιθέου ἀποστασίας. Epiphan. Her. 54, © See St. Athan, de Sent Dionysii, c. 4, sqq. vu | Ff
43 Argument of ‘the Little Labyrinth:
His Personal distinctness from the Father. If the belief of the ante-Nicene Church had been really Arianizing, Noetus could not have appealed to it as he did, while perverting it to a denial of hypostatic distinctions in the Godhead4; and Arius himself might have only passed for a representative of the subordina- tionism of Origen, and of the literalism of Antioch, instead of being condemned as a sophistical dialectician who had broken altogether with the historical tradition of the Church, by daring to oppose a central truth of her unchanging faith. The idea that our Lord’s Divinity was introduced into the belief and language of the Church at a period subsequent to the death of the apostles, was indeed somewhat adventurously put forward by some early Humanitarians. Reference has already been made in another connection to an important passage, which is quoted by Eusebius from an anonymous writer who appears to have flourished in the early part of the third century®. This passage enables us to observe the temper and method of treat- ment encountered by any such theory in ante-Nicene times. The Humanitarian Artemon seems to have been an accom- plished philosopher and mathematician ; and he maintained that the Divinity of Christ was imported into the Church during the episcopate of Zephyrinus, who succeeded Victor in the Roman chair. Now if this story could have been substantiated, it would have been necessary to suppose, either that the Church was the organ of a continuous and not yet completed revelation, or else that the doctrine was a human speculation unwarrantably added to the simpler creed of an earlier age. But the writer to whom I have referred meets the allegation of Artemon by denying it point-blank. ‘Perchance,’ he archly observes, ‘what they [the Artemonites] say might be credible, were it not that the Holy Scriptures contradict them ; and then also there are works of certain brethren, older than the days of Victor, works written in defence of the truth, and against the heresies then prevailing. I speak of Justin and Miltiades, and Tatian and Clement, and many others, by all of whom the Divinity of Christ is asserted. For who,’ he continues, ‘knows not the works of Ireneus and Melito, and the rest, in which Christ is announced as God and Man‘f?’ This was the argument upon
4 St. Hippol. contr. Her. Noeti, c. 1: 6 δὲ ἀντίστατο λέγων, ‘TI οὖν κακὸν ποιῶ δοξάζων τὸν Χριστόν ;’ See also Epiphanius, Her. 57. 9 Cf. Lect. VII. p. 393, note. f Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 28. It is probable that St. Hippolytus wrote ‘The _ Little Labyrinth,’ [ LEcT.
Was the Homoousion a ‘development’? 435
whieh the Church of those ages instinctively fell back when she was accused of adding to her creed. Particular writers might have understated truth; or they might have ventured upon expressions requiring explanation; or they might have written economically as in view of particular lines of thought, and have been construed by others without the qualifications which were present to their own minds. But there could be no mistake about the continuous drift and meaning of the belief around which they moved, and which was always in the background of their ideas and language. There could be no room for the charge that they had invented a new dogma, when it could be shewn that the Church from the beginning, and the New Testa- ment itself, had taught what they were said to have invented.