10

 § 10. Unadvisable Terms and Phrases in Early Writers

 I am now to give instances of incorrect and unadvisable terms and statements in some of the early Fathers, founded upon the doctrine of the Syncatabasis, as I have drawn it out, which may be taken for Semi-Arianism, and gave some countenance to it, when it was openly professed. And I shall arrange them under three heads, according as they belong to our Lord's three titles, the Word, Wisdom, and the Son. 1. The Divine Word

 Our Lord, as the Word of God, is considered first, as in the bosom of the Father, next, as proceeding from Him to create, form, and govern the universe. This contrast is sometimes expressed by the terms [ endiathetos ] and [ prophorikos ], the internal and the external Word. These terms are taken from heathen philosophy; nor are they often used by the Fathers, but the idea they convey has a Christian meaning, and requires terms equivalent to these to express it, if these, on account of their associations, are inexpedient. Heathen terms are not in themselves inexpedient, since St. John uses the word "Logos," which the Platonists, as well as Philo, had used before him; and, as these philosophers also use the two words, Endiathetic and Prophoric, in order to denote change of condition in the Eternal Word, which Christianity also acknowledges, it was but natural in Christian writers to follow the precedent of the Apostle, and, as he designated the Second Person of the Trinity the Logos, in like manner to call him Endiathetic, viewed in His relation to God, and Prophoric, viewed in His relation to creation.

 The history of the words is this: Logos, as we know, stands, in Greek, both for reason and for speech; and, since the inward thought is immediately connected with and passes on into language, as its corresponding development, it was natural to consider the mental and vocal act as virtually one, as the common term expressing them suggested, as if a thought were only an inchoate word, and a word only a perfected thought. Hence came the Logos Endiathetic and Prophoric of the Stoics, who thus both distinguished and identified thinking and speaking. Still more appropriately were these terms applied by the Platonists to their Divine Logos, to express his state of repose and then of action. From the Platonists the terms passed over to Christian writers.

 It was natural that the latter should thus adopt them; still they did not commonly use them; some of them did, but others looked on them with suspicion, convenient and expressive as they were, for the reason that heretical authors, as well as Platonists, had used them for their own purposes. The one term without the other would obviously be the symbol of a heresy; the Inward Word betokened Sabellianism, and the External, Arianism. Both together might represent the Catholic Truth, and accordingly they are used for the Divine Word as in the bosom of the Father, and as manifested in creation, by St. Theophilus, prior to the Nicene Council, and St. Cyril [n. 1] of Alexandria after it; but, on the whole, they were avoided by the Fathers on account of their associations.

 "Nothing essentially belonging to God could be external to God; if, then, Catholics held their Logos to be Prophoric, that was enough to prove that He was not God." This is what the Arians said, whether that External Word was a Divine action or a Divine Messenger. Hence it was that Catholic writers disowned the Logos Prophoricus. Thus, long before the rise of Arianism, Ignatius had said of our Lord, that He was "God's Eternal Word, not proceeding from silence," as a sound or voice does; and Athanasius, with various other Fathers, says that "He is not Prophoric, a sound of words." Arius, on the other hand, assuming what Athanasius denies, says, "Many words does God speak; which of them is the Son?" To obviate this inference, the Fathers spoke of the Word as a substance, hypostasis, or nature. [ Hos ek logikou logos ], says Athanasius, [ houtos ex hypostaseos hypostatos, kai ex ousias ousiodes kai enousios, kai ex ontos on ]. Orat . iv. 1.

 Logos was not the only term, which, from its properly denoting an attribute or act, was denied by the Arians, except in a figurative sense, to the Divine Son. Some Latin writers translated it by "Sermo;" which carries with it an idea of imperfection and complexity, since conversation or talking is made up of parts, and has no determinate limits. Tertullian feeling this, though he uses "Sermo" himself, observes, "Ergo das aliquam substantiam esse sermonem? Plane." adv . Prax . 7. Hence, in contrast, Augustine says of the more usual title, "Verbum," and in opposition to Arius, as above quoted, "Unus est Deus, Unum Verbum habet; in Uno Verbo omnia continet." In Joan . Tract . 22.

 There are other epithets in Ante-Nicene writers, intended specially to exclude the notion of separation between the Father and the Son, and on that account, as I noticed above, imaging the Son as the utterance or fiat of the Father, and not as directly addressed by Him, which, in like manner, might be perverted to obliterate His Divine personality; such as His being the Father's "commanding," or "planning," or "operating." But titles such as these were given to Him by the Catholic Fathers after Arianism as well as before; and, if it is no offence in the Post-Nicene to have taken this licence, much less is it in the Ante-Nicene. If Augustine, for instance, might speak of Him as the "Jussio" of God, then might Justin be allowed to call Him the [ ergasia ] or "Operatio," and Origen to call Him the "Mandatio;" and if Augustine might designate Him as the "Ars Patris," [n. 2] Theophilus is not to blame for applying to Him the title of [ diataxis ]. Yet such titles, as well as that of the Prophoric Word, denoting, in the first instance, divine indeed, but unhypostatic acts, could not really belong (as the Arians might say) to the Son, except figuratively, since Catholics, as well as they, held Him to be an hypostasis. Hence, Athanasius seems to deny that He can be called jussio, which Augustine sanctioned; [ ou prophorikos, oude to prostaxai theon, touto estin ho huios ]. Orat . ii. 35.

 But, even though the Prophoric Word were allowed to be an hypostasis, as Athanasius urged, that would not rescue the phrase from the Arian use of it; for, anyhow, that term implied that the Word was sent forth from the Father; therefore, He was external to Him; and what was external to the Divine Essence could not really belong to it. Indeed, this was the primary tenet of the whole heretical party, that the Son was a second Being, as distinct in his substance from the Father as from any one of us, though the Semi-Arians said he was a sort of emanation from God, but the Arians proper that He was His creature. This, too, as it would appear, is just what Philo meant by the Prophoric Word; and, when Catholics used Philo's term, they might be plausibly represented as using it in Philo's sense.

 And this Arian view of the Logos received additional support from the received Catholic interpretation of certain passages in the Old Testament, and the designation of "Angel" so unhesitatingly given to the Word by the early Fathers. The title, as properly meaning "messenger," is cognate to the idea of a mission; and this is the true explanation of their use of it. It is one of our Lord's titles springing out of His voluntary Syncatabasis; at the same time, unless read with this necessary explanation, it seems to imply a created nature. St. Justin, for instance, speaks of the Word's appearing as an Angel to Abraham, wrestling with Jacob, appearing in the Burning Bush, and announcing to Joshua the fall of Jericho. Still, this is only what the Post-Nicene Fathers, after the experience of Arianism, said also. "He is called an Angel," says Athanasius, "because He alone reveals the Father." Orat . iii. 13. And Hilary: "In order that the distinction of Persons might be absolute, He is called God's Angel; for He who is God from God, is also the Angel of God." de Trin . iv. 23. And as to particular apparitions, Athanasius says that it was our Lord who wrestled with Jacob; Hilary, that it was He who spoke words of comfort to Hagar; Cyril of Jerusalem, that it was He who conversed with Moses on the Mount; Basil, that it was He who appeared to Jacob in a dream; Chrysostom, that He appeared to Abraham; and Cyril of Alexandria, that He appeared to Moses in the Bush. If Athanasius is to be spokesman for these great Fathers, the so-called Angel was not our Lord in the prerogatives proper to His Divine Person, but in one of those manifestations which belonged to His "condescension," and to the office which was the form of it. He was the First-born, as of the material universe, so also of the Angelic Choirs; not, indeed, as partaking the nature of Angels, any more than the nature of the material world, but as present and living in His creatures by an economy of ministration. But, if Athanasius may speak of Him, not in His proper nature, but in His Syncatabasis, why may not Justin?

 There are passages, however, of St. Methodius [n. 3], harsher than any that occur in Justin, and it would be unfair to pass them over without expressing an opinion upon them. I cannot deny they sound like Semi-Arianism; yet I do not see why they should not be interpreted on the principle of the Syncatabasis, as well as those which I have already mentioned. He says that our Lord is "the most ancient of the Æons and the First of the Archangels." Conviv . iii. 4. May not this be taken to mean that He was the Prototocos or First-born of Angels, that He entered into them all, that is, into the spiritual world as into the material, and was the Archetype, on which they were both created and super-naturalized?

 The context, in which these words occur, will confirm such an interpretation of them, and at the same time be defended by it, for the context is at first sight more difficult than the language itself already quoted. Methodius says:

 "Observe how orthodox Paul is in referring Adam to Christ, accounting Adam to be not only a type and an image of Christ, but even this, viz. that he even became Christ, because of the Pro-æonian ([ pro aionon ]) Word having fallen upon him ([ enkataskepsai ]). For it was fitting that the First-born ([ protogonon ]) of God and the First-offspring and Only-begotten, even Wisdom, should, as being intermingled with man ([ kerastheisan ]), have become man ([ enenthropekenai ]), in the Protoplast and First and First-born of men. (And this" [also] "Christ was" [viz. when He came on earth] "a man filled with the pure ([ akratoi ]) and perfect divinity, and God contained in man.) For it was most becoming that the most ancient of the Æons and the First of the Archangels, who was intending ([ mellonta ]) to come among men ([ sunomilein ]), should inhabit Adam, the most ancient and first of men."

 That is, it was fitting that He who condescended to appear as the First-born of the angelic creation should also become the First-born of the human race, as He afterwards in the true Incarnation became the First of the predestinate.

 As to the notion of an indwelling, not hypostatic, of the Son in a creature, it is in this sense that we speak of our Lord's appearing to Abraham or to Jacob; He appeared to them in a created Angel. Again, St. Paul says of himself, "Christ liveth in me;" and the Psalm runs, "Nolite tangere christos meos," in accordance with our Lord's words "Why persecutest thou Me ?" And Catholics hold as de fide, that certainly at communion our Lord is really present in the communicant.

 There is another passage of Methodius which creates some difficulty, in which Origen too, nay, at first sight even Irenæus, may be said to be implicated, and which carries us back to Philo, whose language I must first report.

 Philo, then, in one place speaks of the Supreme God as "He that is" (Jehovah), and as accompanied by His Two Powers, God and Lord ( de Abrah . p. 367, ed. 1691), titles which Mosheim (in Cudworth "Syst. Intell." iv. 36) considers to stand for the Hebrew Elohim and Adonai. Philo's words are, "The Father of all is in the centre, who in the Holy Scriptures is called by His proper name, 'He that is.' Those on each side of Him are His most ancient and nearest Powers; that is, the one called the Operative, the other the Kingly. The Operative is God, for by It He established and ordered the Universe, and the Kingly is the Lord." He proceeds, "Attended ([ doruphoroumenos ]) by each of these Powers, He who is in the centre presents to the perceptive intellect an appearance ([ phantasian ]) at one time of One, at another of Three." It must be added that some such notion is in the Cabbalistic writings. God who is between the Cherubim is the Supreme Being, supported by His two primeval creations, which, according to Epiphanius, the Ebionites considered to be the Son and the Holy Spirit. (Heber, Bampt . Lect . ed. 2, p. 175, vid . also Philo, Quis hæres, p. 504.)

 Philo, as far as I know, ascribed no "condescension" to his Logos, for he considered him a creature, or, at least, an emanation, as well as his companion Angel. He speaks of him as a second God ( vid . Euseb. Præp . Ev . vii. 13, p. 323, ed. 1688); as an Archangel between God and man, neither increate nor a creature, an intercessor with God, a messenger from Him ( Quis  hæres, p. 509), as the first-born Son, His Viceroy ( de Agricult . p. 195), the created idea or plan, the [ kosmos noetos ] on which the visible world was made (de Opif . mund . p. 5, Quis  hæres, p. 512). There is nothing then in him which needs explanation when he speaks of the Almighty and His two ministering attendants; but if a writer such as Irenæus uses language of a like character, he must be interpreted, not by Philo, but by other statements of his own and by the doctrine of his brother theologians. Indeed, when closely inspected, the doubtful language of this great Father explains itself.

 He says: "Not that the Father needeth Angels in order to create, etc. ... for His Offspring and Image minister to Him for all purposes, that is, the Son and Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom, of whom all the Angels are servants and subjects." ( contr . Hær . iv. 7, 4.) Again: "God needed not Angels for the making of those things which He had predestined with Himself should be made; as if He had not Himself His own Hands, for there are ever-present with Him His Word and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, through whom and in whom He made all things at His free-will, and to whom He says 'Let us make man after our Image and Likeness.'" (iv. 20, 1.) The phrase "Hand of God" is used as a title of the Son by Athanasius, Cyril and Augustine, and implies the Homoüsion, that is, that the Son and Spirit are included within, not external to the Divine Essence. Elsewhere, Irenæus says in confirmation of this, "All these things the Father made, not by Angels, nor by any powers divided from His own Intelligence, for God needs not any of these, but by His Word and Spirit." (i. 22, 1.)

 Allowing then that the Second and Third Divine Persons have, in and since the creation, condescended to ministrative offices, no offence can be taken with statements, such as those of Irenæus, which, assuming this, clearly maintain, on the other hand, Their co-existence in the Divine Unity. Though this condition is not denied in the following passage from Methodius, still he unpleasantly uses the language of Philo. He is commenting upon the two olive trees in Zach. iv.:

 "The Angel answered, 'These are the two sons of fatness, who stand by the Lord of the whole earth,' meaning the Two primevil ([ archegonous ]) Powers, which attend on God," ([ doruphorousas ], Philo's word also,) Conv . x. 5. He had in the context been speaking of the Son and Spirit under the images of the Vine and the Fig.

 As to Origen, he seems to have followed the theologians of the Cabbala (according to St. Jerome Ep . ad . Pam . et Oc . t. i. p. 524; ed. Val.), when he considers the Seraphim in Isaiah vi. to be the Second and Third Divine Persons. Here again, as in the instance of Methodius, the question arises, did he so think of Them in Their own nature, or in the ministrative office They had graciously assumed in the economy of creation and redemption, and as inhabiting the Seraphim?

 One other incorrectness, and one which does not admit of a satisfactory explanation, must be pointed out in Methodius, in which others also are implicated, but not Origen, who is as distinctly Catholic in regard to it as Methodius, his severe critic, is not. Catholics, as we have seen in the extracts from Athanasius, were very explicit in teaching that the Divine Word was the Living Idea, the All-sufficient Archetype, the Divine [ diataxis ], the transcendent Ars, on which the universe was framed. The Son interprets and fulfils the designs of the Eternal Mind, not as copying them, when He forms the world, but as being Himself their very Original and Delineation within the Father. Such was the doctrine of the great Alexandrian School, before Athanasius as well as after. Origen calls Him the [ autosophia ], and the [ idea ton ideon ]; and Clement the [ photos archetupon phos ], and the [ arche kai aparche ] of all things; and Athenagoras the [ idea ] and [ energeia ] of creation. Hence it was that He was fitted, and He alone, to become the First-born of all things, and to exercise a Syncatabasis which would be available for the conservation of the world. The African Tertullian before Arianism, as well as Augustine after it, says in like manner that in Him were "the thoughts and dispositions of all things, which were as if they were already, as existing in the Divine Intelligence." adv . Prax . 6. fin .

 Different from this is the language of Philo, who either held that the Word wrought after the Divine "Archetypal exemplars," or again, as I have said above, was the Divine created plan of the world; anyhow, not the Divine Idea; and Eusebius follows him in this denial. "As a skilful painter," he says, "taking the archetypal ideas from the Father's thoughts, He [the Word] transferred them to the substance of His works." Eccl . Theol . p. 165. This mistake was not guarded against by Methodius; he speaks of our Lord adorning the world by imitation, [ kata mimesin ], of the Father. Ap . Phot. Bibl . p. 938. Novatian falls into the same error (p. 175, ed. Jackson), calling the Son expressly "imitator." Vid . also Tatian contr . Græc . 7, who says [ kata ten mimesin ]. 2. The Divine Wisdom

 Wisdom is another chief title given to our Lord, which was wrested from its true meaning, as contained in the Ante-Nicene writers, by the Arians who succeeded them. It signifies the Word, especially considered as having become a gift to the universe, that is, as the First-born viewed in His Supreme Excellence and Perfection. Hence, whereas there are two chief acts of the Demiurge, first to create, then to fashion and furnish; in the latter of these acts, that is, in stamping His Image upon the world in its order, harmony, and beauty, He is Wisdom, as in creating and sustaining it He is the Word. Again, since in the Gospel Dispensation it is the Third Divine Person who is the Giver of life, grace, strength, and glory to the spiritual creation, and since Divine Wisdom, as seen in the material creation, manifests itself in analogous gifts, it is not strange that in the writings of the early Fathers, Wisdom is sometimes found to be the symbol of the Holy Ghost, not of our Lord, as in passages of Theophilus and Irenæus, as above quoted.

 This leads to a remark very pertinent to the matter in hand. We know that in Scripture the same word "Spirit" is used indiscriminately, and (if I may so speak) used confusedly, both for the Holy Ghost and for His gifts. Even He Himself is called a gift in the Hymn, viz. "Altissimi Donum Dei," as if He had really no personality; and much more is it common with St. Paul to speak of His gifts and graces as if identical with Himself, as if what is merely His work were really He. Thus we read of Christians "walking in the spirit," of the "spirit of adoption," of "the law of the spirit of life," of "giving" and "receiving the spirit." Nor are we without some instances of a parallel usage in Scripture, as regards our Lord's titles. Thus "Christ" is said to be "born in our hearts," and "the engrafted Word" is said to "save our souls." And so again, our members are said to be "members of Christ," and our Lord is said to be persecuted in His disciples, as I remarked above.

 In this way it is that the early Fathers speak of Him, and most appropriately, under the name of Wisdom, as a work or creation. Thus Tertullian speaks of the "Sophia condita, initium viarum in opera ipsius" ( adv . Herm . 45), and Clement of the [ protoktistos sophia ]. ( Strom . v. 14, ed. Potter.) This is the plain doctrine of Athanasius, as stated in the following passage, which is a continuation of what I have above quoted:

 "If, as the Son of Sirach says, 'He poured her out upon all his works,' ... and such an outpouring signifies, not the substance of the Auto-Wisdom and Only-begotten, but of that wisdom which is copied off from Him in the world, how is it incredible that the All-framing and True Wisdom, whose impress is the wisdom and knowledge poured out in the world, should say ... as if of itself, 'The Lord created Me for His works.' For the wisdom of the world is not creative, but is that which is created in the works, according to which 'The heavens rehearse the glory of God, and the firmament announces the work of His Hands.' This if men have within them, they will acknowledge the true Wisdom of God, and will know that they are made really after God's Image. And, as some king's son, when his father wished to build a city, might cause his name to be printed upon each of the works that were rising, both to give security of the works remaining by reason of the show of his name on everything, and also to make them remember him and his father from the name, and, having finished the city, might be asked concerning it, how it was made, and then would answer, 'It is made securely, for, according to the will of my father, I am imaged in every work, for there is a creation of my name in the works;' yet in saying this does not signify that his own substance is created, but the impress of himself by means of his name; in the same manner, to apply the illustration to those who admire the wisdom seen in the creatures, the True Wisdom makes answer, 'The Lord hath created Me for the works,' for the impress which is in them is Mine, and I have thus condescended in My framing them." Orat . ii. 79.

 St. Cyril of Alexandria expresses this created Wisdom in another way, after Scripture, calling the Divine Word, relatively to us, a seed; whereas if He were literally a seed within us, the plant of grace, as showing itself in our thoughts, words, and deeds, would be Himself, which is pantheistic. "The Word of God," he says, "'enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world;' not in the way of a Teacher, as Angels do, or men, but rather as God, in the way of a Framer, doth He sow in each whom He calls into being the seed of Wisdom." In Joan . i. 75. This figure of speech occurs several times in Justin, and surely without any blame to him. He speaks of the heathen writers "seeing truth, though dimly, through the innate seed of the Word." Apol . ii. 13. "Of the spermatic Divine Word," ibid ., and of those "in whom dwells the seed from God, the Word." Apol . i. 32. It is scarcely necessary to refer to St. Peter's words concerning Christians being born again, "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the Word of God who liveth and remaineth for ever."

 If St. Athanasius may, without offence, call the Eternal Word and Wisdom a creature, that is, figuratively, and St. Cyril speaks of Him as if a seed, it does not appear why there should not be a sufficient explanation producible for St. Justin and others calling him a Work, though this has seemed to many writers, Catholic as well as Unitarian, to give matter for a controversy. For instance, Justin calls Him [ ergon tes boules tou proballontos auton patros ], Tryph . 76, that is, after He was [ problethen ], He became an [ ergon ]; Tatian calls Him [ ergon prototokon ], contr. Græc . 5, and St. Dionysius of Alexandria a [ poiema ]. If the name of Athanasius is not great enough to shelter such expressions from criticism, I refer objectors to the following passage from the Angelic Doctor:

 "Filius," he says, "in Scripturis dicitur creatura, Eccli . xxiv. 5, etc. Cum dicitur, 'Sapientia est creata,' potest intelligi de sapientia quam Deus indidit creaturis; Eccli . i. 9. Neque est inconveniens, quod in uno contextu locutionis loquatur Scriptura de Sapientia genita et creata, quia sapientia creata est participatio quædam Sapientiæ increatæ." Qu . 41, 3, t. 20, pp. 194-5. 3. The Divine Son

 As the terms Word and Wisdom have each two senses both in Scripture and in the Fathers, the one relative to God, the other to the creature, so has the term "Son." It means the Only-begotten and the First-born, as I have shown above; and, as misconceptions concerning the two former titles were a sort of shelter to the prevalent heresy of the fourth century, so were misconceptions concerning the Divine Son.

 1. Very little remains to be said about the term "First-born." The figure is used of our Lord six times in Scripture, and in each case it is distinct in meaning from "Only-begotten." (1) First, St. Paul speaks of His becoming in His incarnation the "first-born among many brethren," Rom . viii. 29; and he connects this economy with their being conformed to His Image, and gifted with grace and glory. (2) In the same sense we read of Him in the Apocalypse as "the Beginning of the creation of God" (that is, the new creation), Apoc . iii. 14. (3) He is "the First-born of the dead;" Apoc . i. 5; that is, the cause and first-fruits of our Resurrection. (4) Also, Col . i. 18. (5) The "First-born of all creation," Col . i. 15; as being the efficient and formal cause whereby the creation was born into a Divine adoption. And (6) St. Paul speaks of God's "bringing the First-born into the world" ( Hebr . i. 6), where by "the world" may be meant either the material universe, or the world of men.

 In none of these passages does the phrase "First-born of God " occur; the word refers, not to His generation, but to His birth (that is, His figurative birth) into the Universe, or into the family of Adam, or from the grave. St. Athanasius notices this contrast between "Only-begotten" and "First-born." "If He be called First-born of the creation," he says, "it is because of His condescension to the creatures, according to which he has become a Brother unto many and It is nowhere written of Him in the Scriptures, 'the First-born of God,' nor 'the creature of God,' but it is the words 'the Only-begotten,' and 'Son,' and 'Word,' and 'Wisdom,' that signify His relating and belonging to the Father. But 'First-born' implies descent to the creation ... The same cannot be both Only-begotten and First-born, except in different relations; that is, Only-begotten, because of His generation from the Father, and First-born, because of his condescension to the creation, and to the brotherhood which He has extended to many." Orat . ii. 62.

 The treatises of Petavius, de Trinitate and de Incarnatione, are works of such vast extent and such prodigious learning, that it is not safe to say what is not contained in them. I will only observe, then, that I do not recollect meeting with passages in them which recognize the above doctrine of St. Athanasius concerning the "First-born." Petavius seems to take the title [ Prototokos ] in its Latin sense of Primogenitus, and thence, contrasting it with Unigenitus, to inquire which Fathers use it of our Lord's divine nature, and which Fathers of His human; whereas there is a class of ideas and epithets which belong neither to the one nature nor to the other separately, but to both, that is, to His mediatorial office, and embrace both natures, as Petavius would be the first to acknowledge. Such especially is our Lord's Priesthood; and analogous to this incarnate mediatorship is His office of Demiurge. It is quite true that, as Petavius shows, there are writers, both before and after the Nicene Council, who understand "First-born" as simply belonging either to the one or the other of His natures; but that is no reason why he should not do justice to the doctrine of Athanasius, a doctrine taken up by his successor, Cyril, who, speaking of the title "First-born" and the creatures, says, [ ouch hos protos ekeinon huparxas, all'  hos protos tes huiou prosegorias genomenos autois aitios ]. Thesaur . p. 241, c. Vid . also ibid . p. 238, [ hina hosper athanatoi tini rhizei ], etc.

 2. So much, then, on the "First-born" the other title of the Son, viz. the "Only-begotten," introduces us to the third and most important of the three sanctions, which the Arians claimed, in favour of the heresy, from the Ante-Nicene writings. It will be the subject of my concluding Sections.

 1. So I understand Petav. de Trin . vi. 1, § 8.  

 2. contr . Serm . Ar . 3. t. 8, p. 627; de Trin . vi. 10.  

 3. Photius considers his works have been practised upon by heretics.