The Son became, as God becomes a defence. 269 XIII. better in nature than things generate, appears from what has CHAP. been said before, which, I consider, is sufficient in itself to put them to shame. But if they carry on the contest, it will be proper upon their rash daring to close with them, and to oppose to them those similar expressions which are used concerning the Father Himself. This may serve to prevail with them to refrain their tongue from evil, or may teach them the depth of their folly. Now it is written, Become my strong rock and house of defence, Ps.31,3. that Thou mayest save me. And again, The Lord be- Ps. 9, 9. came a defence for the oppressed, and the like which are found in divine Scripture. If then they apply these passages to the Son, which perhaps is nearest to the truth, then let them acknowledge that the sacred writers ask Him, as not being generate, to become to them a strong rock and house of defence; and for the future let them understand become, and He made, and He created, of His incarnate presence. For then did He become a strong rock and house of defence, when He bore our sins in His own body upon the tree, and said, Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are Mat.11, heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 28. 13. But if they refer these passages to the Father, will they, §. 63. when it is here also written, "Become" and "He became," venture so far as to affirm that God is generate? Yea, they will dare, as they thus argue concerning His Word; for the course of their argument carries them on to conjecturé the same things concerning the Father, as they devise concerning His Word. But far be such a notion ever from the thoughts of all the faithful! for neither is the Son in the number of things generated, nor do the words of Scripture in question, Become, and He became, denote beginning of being, but that succour which was given to the needy. For God is always, and one and the same; but men came to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father Himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to generated things, and especially to men upon earth. When then men in infirmity invoke Him, when in persecution they ask help, when under injuries they pray, then the Invisible, being a lover of man, shines forth upon them with His beneficence, which He exercises through and in His proper Word. And forthwith I. 270 God becomes all things to all, without change of nature; Disc. the divine manifestation is made to every one according to his - need, and is made to the weak health, and to the persecuted a refuge and house of defence; and to the injured He says, Is.58,9. While thou speakest I will say, Here I am. What defence then comes to each through the Son, that each says that God has come to be to himself, since succour comes from God Himself through the Word. Moreover the usage of men recognises this, and every one will confess its propriety. Often succour comes from man to man; one has undertaken toil for the injured, as Abraham for Lot; and another has opened his home to the persecuted, as Abdias to the sons of the prophets; and another has entertained a stranger, as Lot the Angels; and another has supplied the needy, as Job those who begged of him. As then, should one and the other of these benefitted persons say, "Such a one became an assistance to me," and another " and to me a refuge," and "to another a supply," yet in so saying would not be speaking of the original becoming or the substance of their benefactors, but of the beneficence coming to themselves from them, so also when the sacred writers say concerning God, He became and become Thou, they do not denote any original becoming, for God is unoriginate and not generate, but the salvation which is made to be unto men from Him. §. 64. 14. This being so understood, it is parallel also respecting the Son, that whatever, and however often, is said, such as, He became and become, should ever have the same sense: so that as, when we hear the words in question become better than the Angels and He became, we should not conceive any original becoming of the Word, nor in any way fancy from such terms that He is generate; but should understand Paul's words of His ministry and economy when He became man. For when John 1, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and came to minister and to grant salvation to all, then He became to us salvation, and became life, and became propitiation; then His economy in our behalf became much better than the Angels, and He became the Way and became the Resurrection. And as the words Become my strong rock do not denote that the substance of God Himself became, but His lovingkindness, as has been said, 14. XIII. ref. 2. so also here the having become better than the Angels, and, CHAP. He became, and, by so much is Jesus become a better surety, do not signify that the substance' of the Word is1p. 268, generate, (perish the thought!) but the beneficence which towards us came to be through His incarnation; unthankful though the heretics be, and obstinate in behalf of their irreligion. NOTE NOTE on page 214. On the meaning of the formula πρὶν γεννηθῆναι οὐκ ἦν, in the It was observed p. 61, note d, that there were two clauses in ON the Nicene Anathema which required explanation. One of them, DISC. ἐξ ἑτέρας ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσίας, has been discussed in the Note, pp. I. 66-72; the other, giv yεveñvai ovn v, shall be considered now. Bishop Bull has suggested a very ingenious interpretation of it, which is not obvious, but which, when stated, has much plausibility, as going to explain, or rather to sanction, certain modes of speech in some early Fathers of venerable authority, which have been urged by heterodox writers, and given up by Catholics of the Roman School, as savouring of Arianism. The foregoing pages have made it abundantly evident that the point of controversy between Catholics and the Arians was, not whether our Lord was God, but whether He was Son of God; the solution of the former question being involved in that of the latter. The Arians maintained that the very word "Son" implied a beginning, or that our Lord was not Very God; the Catholics said that it implied connaturality, or that He was Very God as one with God." Now five early writers, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Hippolytus, and Novatian, of whom the authority of Hippolytus is very great, not to speak of Theophilus and Athenagoras, whatever be thought of Tatian and of Novatian, seem to speak of the divine generation as taking place immediately before the creation of the world, that is, as if not eternal, though at the same time they teach that our Lord existed before that generation. In other words they seem to teach that He was the Word from eternity, and became the Son at the beginning of all things; some of them expressly considering Him, first as the λoyos idiabetos, or Reason, in the Father, or (as may be speciously represented,) a mere attribute; next, as the xyos #googinos, or Word, terms which have been already explained, p. 113, note z. This doctrine, when divested of figure and put into literal statement, might appear nothing more or less than this,- that at the beginning of the world the Son was created after the likeness of the Divine attribute of Reason, as its image or expression, and thereby became the Divine Word; was made the instrument of creation, called the Son from that ineffable favour and adoption which God had bestowed on him, and in due time sent into the world to manifest God's perfections to mankind; which, it is scarcely necessary to say, is the doctrine of Arianism. Note on "before His generation” in the Nicene Anathema. 273 Thus S. Hippolytus says, NOTE Τῶν δὲ γινομένων ἀρχηγὸν καὶ σύμβουλον καὶ ἐργατὴν ἐγέννα λόγον, ὃν ON λόγον ἔχων ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἀόρατόν τε ὄντα τῷ κτιζομένῳ κόσμῳ, ὁρατὸν ποιεῖ· Disc. προτέραν φωνὴν φθεγγόμενος, καὶ φῶς ἐκ φωτὸς γεννῶν, προῆκεν τῇ κτίσει κύριον. contr. Noet. 10. And S. Theophilus: Ἔχων οὖν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόγον ἐνδιάθετον ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις σπλάγχνοις, ἐγέννη σεν αὐτὸν μετὰ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σοφίας ἐξερευξάμενος πρὸ τῶν ὅλων .. ὁπότε δὲ ἠθέλησεν ὁ θεὸς ποιῆσαι ὅσα ἐβουλεύσατο, τοῦτον τὸν λόγον ἐγέννησε προφορικὸν, πρωτότοκον πάσης κτίσεως. ad Autol. ii. 10-22. Bishop Bull, Defens. F. N. iii. 5-8. meets this representation by maintaining that the yrs which S. Hippolytus and other writers spoke of, was but a metaphorical generation, the real and eternal truth being shadowed out by a succession of events in the Economy of time, such as is the Resurrection, (Acts xiii. 33.) nay, the Nativity; and that of these His going forth to create the worlds was one. And he maintains, ibid. iii. 9. that such is the mode of speaking adopted by the Fathers after the Nicene Council as well as before. And then he adds, (which is our present point,) that it is even alluded to and recognised in the Creed of the Council, which anathematizes those who say that "the Son was not before His generation," i. e. who deny that "the Son was before His generation," which statement accordingly becomes indirectly a Catholic truth. " I am not aware whether any writer has preceded or followed this great authority in this view. The more obvious mode of understanding the Arian formula is this, that it is an argument ex absurdo, drawn from the force of the word Son, in behalf of the Arian doctrine; it being, as they would say, a truism, that, "whereas He was begotten, He was not before He was begotten,' and the denial of it a contradiction in terms. This certainly does seem to myself the true force of the formula; so much so, that if Bishop Bull's explanation be admissible, it must, in order to its being so, first be shewn to be reducible to this sense, and to be included under it. The point at issue between the two interpretations is this; whether the clause πρὶν γεννηθῆναι οὐκ ἦν is intended for a denial of the contrary proposition, "He was before His generation," as Bishop Bull says; or whether it is what Aristotle calls an enthymematic sentence, assuming the falsity, as confessed on all hands, of that 1. |