19. "He was the Only Begotten of the Father of the universe, the Logos and Power, properly (idíws) begotten of him, and afterwards made man of the virgin." (Dial., p. 363.)

Towards the close of this tract, there is a passage which in a very ample manner illustrates the sentiments of Justin and of his times. But it is much too long to quote entire, and will scarcely allow of abridgment. It begins, “ Τίς δ' ἐστὶν οὗτος ὃς καὶ ̓́Αγγελος μεγάλης βουλῆς ποτὲ,” κ. τ. λ. (p. 407,) and is conceived in the same spirit as the foregoing.

TATIAN. A.D. 165.

A disciple of Justin Martyr. He appears to have been a man of speculative mind; and after the death of his master fell into heresy. His only remaining work, an "Oration against the Greeks," was however written before his lapse. The following is from a long passage, the whole of which is worthy of the reader's attention :

20. "The celestial Logos, a Spirit begotten of the Father, in imitation of the Father who begat him, made man the image of immortality, that as incorruption is from God, man in like manner, partaking this portion of deity, might be immortal." (Orat. con. Græc., p. 25; see sect. vii., p. 20, sqq.)

The following extracts are from an Apology addressed by this father to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. The former is a part of an eloquent and lucid exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity.

21. "We are not atheists, since we deem God to be one, the Unbegotten, and Eternal, and Invisible, and Impassible, and Incomprehensible, and Illimitable,

comprehended only by his Mind and Word; surrounded with light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable; of whom by his Word the universe was made, and adorned, and established.—We understand that there is also a Son of God. Let no one think it a ridiculous thing, that God should be said to have a Son. For not as the poets feign, representing those as gods who are nothing better than men, do we esteem either God the Father or his Son. But the Son of God is the Word of the Father, in idea and in operation; unto him and by him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. The Son being in the Father, and the Father in the Son, in the unity and power of the Spirit; the Mind and Word of the Father [being thus] the Son of God." (Legat. pro Christianis, sect ix., pp. 37, 38.)

22. "As unto you, [Emperors,] father and son, all things are committed; you having received your kingdom from above, (for the soul of the king is in the hand of God, as saith the prophetical Spirit,) even so, unto the one God and his Word with him,—who is to be contemplated as his inseparable Son,—are all things subjected." (Sect. xv., pp. 63, 64.)

IRENEUS. A. D. 178..

Little, it is apprehended, need be said to secure peculiar attention to the testimony of this father. In early life he conversed with Polycarp, the disciple of St.John, and with the most aged and venerable Christians of the Smyrnæan church. He connects us, therefore, more directly than any other individual of this period with the ministry of the last of the Apostles. Nurtured, as he probably was, in the Christian faith; distinguished among the presbyters of Gaul for piety, modesty, learning, and discretion; the successor in the bishopric of Lyons to the venerable Pothinus, who suffered in the

year 177, he comes before us recommended by a personal reputation unsullied and eminent; and to whatever suspicion of philosophizing Justin Martyr may have been liable, no allegation of the kind has ever been brought against Irenæus.

With the exception of a few questionable fragments, his only remaining work is a Treatise against Heresies, in five books. The principal errors against which his arguments are directed were founded upon an abuse of the doctrine of divine generation. Such was Gnosticism in all its forms; and such especially was the system of Valentinus, which, in the arrangement of his work, occupies the first place. Considering his facilities for obtaining the necessary information, it is not too much to say, that he must have known whether the doctrine in question was taught by St. John, or whether it had been subsequently introduced into the church by philosophizing speculatists. Had the latter been the fact, it certainly would have been exposed by Irenæus. The opinion could not have been regarded as of no importance, since it was thus obviously susceptible of distortion so pernicious; and with the abundant evidence on every hand to this effect, a Christian writer on the subject must have been singularly and culpably careless to have wholly omitted some such denunciation. Giving this father credit, therefore, merely for that love of the . truth for which he has always enjoyed a distinguished reputation, his silence alone would have been a strong evidence in favour of the theory in question.

But Irenæus was a controversialist; and in addition to the motive arising from an attachment to Christian doctrine was naturally concerned for the success of his arguments. The simple denial of the fact and of the possibility of a divine generative production had been fatal to the cause of his opponents. The Valentinians, for example, received St. John's Gospel entire, and upon

the sentiments of that Evangelist, Irenæus was one of the first authorities now surviving. What then would have been more easy, what, had it been the fact, more obviously conclusive, than for him to have said, “St. John had no such meaning as you ascribe to him? By the term 'Logos,' he does not indicate a person, but merely the attribute of divine wisdom. In the phrase 'Only Begotten,' he does not ascribe a super-human nature to Christ, but refers to his miraculous conception alone. By the appellation, 'Son of God,' in general, he intends only to describe the human production, or official dignity of our Redeemer. Your notion of a generation in the divine nature is an absurd and impossible figment of your own. Lay aside, I entreat you, these pernicious speculations; receive the true sense of the divine oracles; and especially consent to abandon your emanative system, which, in all its parts and under every possible aspect, is unscriptural and irrational." Would any controversial writer have hesitated for a moment to make such a denial, providing only that it could have been done in good faith?

Irenæus neither denies nor formally maintains the doctrine; but he does what is far more decisive. He takes it for granted; never drops the slightest intimation that there was, or that there could be, more than one opinion upon the matter, or that on any side it was the subject of the smallest doubt. And the following cita-. tions, though generally incidental, are as unequivocal as if they had been written with a reference directly defensive.

23. "Even these [opinions of the Gnostics] are much more decorous than are the notions of such persons as transfer the production of the word of man to the Eternal Word of God, giving to him a beginning and a creation of his production, as to their own word. And in what does the Word of God, or rather God himself,

for he is the Word, differ from the word of men, if he have the same order and process in his generation?" (Adv. Hær., lib. ii., c. xviii., p. 138.)

24. 66 If any one shall say unto us, In what manner is the Son produced from the Father? to him we reply, that that production, or generation, or pronouncing, or manifestation, or by what name soever you [otherwise] describe his ineffable generation, no man knoweth: not Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides; not angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor powers; but the Father alone who begets, and the Son who is begotten. Since therefore this generation is ineffable, they who strive to declare it are not of sound mind, in promising to make known what cannot possibly be explained." (Lib. ii., c. xlviii., p. 176.)

25. "The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto all to whom he is revealed, is revealed and made manifest by his Word, who is his Son. For those know him unto whom the Son will reveal him. But the Son, co-existing always with the Father, in time past and from the beginning, ever reveals the Father unto angels and archangels, unto dominions and powers, and unto all to whom it pleaseth God to make himself known." (Lib. ii., c. lv., p. 185.)

26. "The Gospel according to John relates the princely, and efficacious, and glorious generation of Christ from the Father, saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made.—But Matthew relates that generation which belongs to him as man, saying, The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And again, The birth of Christ was on this wise." (Lib. iii., c. xi., p. 222.)

This passage is of great importance, as determining the sense affixed by Irenæus, and by the catholics of

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