born, is said to be "Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father," breaks out into this exclamation, "O the Mighty God! O the perfect Child! the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son!" - Hippolytus, reviewing another passage of the same prophet, "Surely God is in thee, and there is none else;" observes, "By the words God is in thee, he showed the mystery of the incarnation, that by the WORD becoming flesh and being made man, the Father was in the Son, and the Son in the Father, it being the Son who lived among men." Does the Court require more instances in proof of this point?

" 2

Att. Gen. No, sir- Now, proceed, if you please, to show that Christ was not a created Being.

Witness. That may be very easily and fully done, by running through most of the early Fathers in succession. First of all the shepherd Hermas says, "The Son of God is more ancient than any created thing?" a

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1 Ὢ τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ· Ὢ τοῦ τελείου παιδίου· Υιος ἐν Πατρὶ, καὶ Πατὴρ ἐν Υιῷ. - Pædag. l. i. c. 6. p. 112.

2 Τὸ δὲ εἰπεῖν, ὅτι ἐν σοὶ ὁ Θεός ἐστιν, ἐδείκνυεν μυστήριον οἰκονομίας, ὅτι σεσαρκωμένον τοῦ Λόγου καὶ ἐνανθρωπήσαντος ὁ Πατὴρ ἣν ἐν τῷ Ὑιῷ, καὶ ὁ γιὸς ἐν τῷ Πατρὶ ἐμπολιτευομένου τοῦ Υιοῦ ἐν ἀνθρώποις. Contr. Noëtum, c. iv. vol. ii. p. 8. 3 Filius quidem Dei omni creatura antiquior est. Lib. iii. simil. 9. § 12.

Court. Do you infer from hence, as the witness Horsley has done, that the expression, "being still more ancient than the oldest created thing," establishes the pre-existence and uncreated nature of Christ?

Witness. My Lord, I do; for in the same manner St. Paul calls Christ not the first of every creature, but the first-born or first-begotten of every creature. Justin Martyr and Origen speak the same express and correct language, "He was begotten of the Father, and was with the Father before any thing was created;" says the former. "The image of the invisible God, begotten before every creature, is incapable of death," says the latter.' Irenæus, addressing his fellow-man, says, "Thou art not uncreated, O man! nor didst thou always exist together with God, like his own WORD." 2 Here are most important disclosures made in these few words, declarative of the uncreated, pre-existing, and divine nature of the Word or Christ. And the same Father, commenting upon St. John, adds, “That angels or archangels, or thrones or dominations, were appointed by Him, who is God over all, and made by

1 Dial. cum Tryph. 100. p. 195. Comment in Joan. vol. iv. p. 392.

2 Non enim infectus es, ô homo! neque semper co-exsistebas Deo, sicut proprium ejus Verbum. - L. ii. c. 25.

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his WORD, John has thus told us; for, after he had said of the WORD of God, that he was in the Father, he added, All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made.""'-Hippolytus declares that Christ "is neither created, nor circumscribed by creation." 2 Origen asserts the same repeatedly.

Court. How is that? for Dr. Clarke in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, as I remember, says, "that Origen expressly reckoned the Son among the created things ? (δημιουργήματα.)

Witness. Then, my Lord, Origen shall speak for himself; for this Father, writing against Celsus, thus expresses himself: "Our Saviour and Lord, the Word of God, says, No one knoweth the Son but the Father; for no one can know him who is uncreated and begotten before every created nature in its full extent, so well as the Father who begat him; nor can any one know the Father so well as the animate WORD, who is His Wisdom and Truth." — And, that we may be the better assured of Origen's belief and doctrine, it may be remarked that, in his commentary upon St. John, he again

1 Quoniam enim sive angeli, sive archangeli, &c.— Lib. iii. c. 8. § 2.

2 Οὐ γὰρ πέφυκε περιγράφεσθαι γενητῇ φύσει τὸ κατὰ φύσιν ἀγένητον. Contr. Ber. et Hel.i. p. 227.

3 L. vi. § 17. vol. i. p. 643.

says, "God, who is above all created things, became man.”1

Att. Gen. Now, sir, that you have shown what the belief and writings of the early Fathers testify of Christ as uncreated, what do they prove with respect to his office as Creator?

Witness. Justin Martyr, in explaining some things to Diognetus which had raised doubts and difficulties in the way of his apprehension of Christianity, addressed a letter to him, in which he says, "The omnipotent and all-creative and invisible God hath himself from heaven established among men the truth, and the holy and incomprehensible word, and rooted it in their hearts: not as you might suppose, by sending to men any of his servants, either an angel, or a prince, or one of those who administer the affairs of earth, or one of those who have the management of heavenly things intrusted to them; but the Framer and Creator of the universe himself, by whom he created the heavens, by whom he shut up the sea in its own bounds." 2 I have already shown that Irenæus illustrates and enforces the passage of St. John by

1 Θεὸς ὁ ὑπὲρ πάντα τὰ γενητὰ ἐνηνθρώπησεν. — In Joan, vol. iv. p. 87.

2 Αλλ ̓ αὐτὸν τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ δεμιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων, ᾧ τοὺς οὐρανοὺς ἔκτισεν, ᾧ τὴν θάλασσαν ἰδίοις ὅροις ἐνέκλεισεν. Ep. ad Diognetum, c. 7. p. 237.

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saying that "The WORD of God, by whom all things were made, is our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 shall give one other quotation to confirm what I have said, by citing Hippolytus, who, speaking of the baptism of Jesus in the waters of Jordan, remarks, “The Lord, by the mercifulness of his condescension, was not unknown to the nature of the waters in what he did secretly; for (saith David) the waters saw him and were afraid;' they all but retreated back and fled from their boundary. Whence the prophet many ages before perceived this, and asked, 'What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou, fleddest? or thou, Jordan, that thou wast driven back?' But they answered and said, We saw the Creator of all things in the form of a servant, and not knowing the mystery of the incarnation, we are driven back through fear." 2

Court. But did not Dionysius of Alexandria believe Christ to be a creature although a Creator?

Witness. I think, my Lord, the very reverse, if I may judge from his language to the heretic Paul of Samosata:-" One only Virgin, the daughter of life, brought forth the living and self-substantial

1 Verbum Dei, per quem facta sunt omnia, qui est Dominus noster Jesus Christus. 1. iii. c. 8. § 2.

4 Τὸν πάντων Κτιστὴν ἐν μορφῇ δούλου εἴδομεν, καὶ τὸ μυστήριον τῆς οἰκονομίας ἀγνοήσαντες, ἀπὸ τῆς δειλίας ἐλαυνόμεθα. Homil. in Theo. vol. i. p. 262.