called Abraham lord (1 Pet. iii. 6; Gen. xviii. 12), although she was not his bondmaid, and Paul terms Onesimus a brother, although the latter was a slave (c. Ar. 2, 3). Now if we, nevertheless, do not call servants sons, nor sons servants, nor employ the other terms just mentioned as they are employed in these exceptional cases, neither ought we to deny the true nature of the Son and Logos of God, when the scriptures employ the language respecting him which has been adduced. And yet, when the scriptures apply to Christ the terms yévvnua and Logos of God, the latter are misinterpreted and denied; while, on the other hand, when the scriptures speak of Christ as Toinua, the Arians disingenuously at once declare that the Son is by nature a creature (1. c. 4).

Athanasius then explains the words in Heb. iii. 2 as teaching that the Father had made his Son a human being, and sent him to be our high-priest; this was the result when the Logos, although he was the creator of the world, assumed a body that was created and that had a beginning of its being. Hence, in the beginning the Lord was the Logos, was with God, and was God; and then, when it pleased God that he should become a sacrifice for us, he was made flesh. Now, even as it could be said of Aaron on a certain day: "To-day Aaron is made [has become] a high-priest," without thereby conveying the sense: "To-day Aaron has become a human being," so, too, the language: "The Father has made him, the Son, a high-priest," cannot be interpreted to mean that then the Logos had been first created, and, as the Logos, had had a beginning (c. Ar. 2. 7, 8).

While Athanasius referred Heb. iii. 2 to the sacerdotal office of Christ, he explained Acts ii. 36 as an indication of his kingly office, which the Lord also acquired through his incarnation. He appeals to the Greek version of Gen. xxvii. 29, 37, where, as he maintains, the phrase kúptov πоieîv refers, not to the ovcía, but to the covoia of Jacob and Esau; so, too, the words in Acts ii. 36 specially refer to the Lord's

authority over us, and his royal rank, which he gained through his incarnation. "He was previously already both Lord and King (Ps. cx.); but after the law, with its curse, and death, had acquired dominion over us, he was made flesh, completed his redeeming work for our benefit on the cross, and communicated its blessings through the mission of the Holy Spirit; in this manner he became our Lord, and we became his subjects in a special sense. His eternal dominion over us, which he possessed as the image and Logos of the Father, and as the creator of the world, was manifested anew through his incarnation and redeeming work ” (τὸ ἐποίησεν ἶσον τῷ ἀπέδειξεν, c. Ar. 2. 12 – 18).

No scriptural passage, however, occupied so prominent a position as Prov. viii. 22 – 25, and specially vs. 22: kúpιos ἔκτισέ με ἀρχὴν ὁδῶν αὐτοῦ εἰς ἔργα αὐτοῦ. The Arians appealed to this passage, not only for the purpose of substantiating their general doctrine that the Son is a creature, but also for that of proving that God had created the Son for the work of completing the creation of the world. As the Arians regarded the passage as their stronghold, Athanasius devotes almost the whole of the succeeding portions of his second discourse against the Arians, or eighty-two chapters, to the work of exposing the errors of the Arian interpretation. Voigt, who has hitherto been our guide, occupies more than eight pages with a statement of this particular controversy. As neither party, however, appealed to the original Hebrew text, and as the Septuagint, on which both depended, does not here reproduce the original with entire accuracy, we omit this portion of the controversy in its exegetical form.

The Arians had also appealed to Col. i. 15: ős éotiv eikàv τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, προτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως ; they maintained that, while the Son was here termed the first-born of the whole creation, he was still regarded as belonging to that creation, as a part of it, and was classed with other creatures in respect to his nature. "But if this were really the case," Athanasius replies, "he would, with respect to

his nature, be a brother of irrational creatures also, and could be classed even with inanimate objects (avvxa), being in that case distinguished from all these only by the difference in the time of his origin. The passage obviously calls for a different interpretation. The Son is both povoyevýs and also πрштотокоs; now he could not receive both predicates, unless the reference in each case were peculiar and respectively different. The term povoyevýs, namely, refers to his generation by the Father, while πpwтóтокоs is to be understood as indicating εἰς τὴν κτίσιν συγκατάβασιν καὶ τὴν τῶν πολλῶν ἀδελφοποίησιν (creation and redemption). As the onlybegotten he has no brethren, but as the first-born he has many. He receives the former appellation from his relation to God (John i. 14; 1 John iv. 9), the latter, from his relation to the world. The latter relation he assumed in consequence of the love of the Father to men, since God desired not only that all things should "consist" (Col. i. 17) by his Logos (creation), but also that through him "the creature should be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. viii. 21). By such a process he becomes the first-born, not only of those who are the children of God, but also of the whole creation" (c. Ar. 2, 62-64).

The words in Heb. i. 4 (τοσούτῳ κρείττων γενόμενος τῶν ἀγγέλων, ὅσῳ διαφορώτερον παρ' αὐτοὺς κεκληρονόμηκεν ὄνομα) were also involved in the controversy. The Arians laid an emphasis on the word yevóμevos, which, as they alleged, implied that the Son began to be in time, like the angels, although he is of higher rank than they are. Athanasius replies that yevóμevos is to be interpreted, not as an independent phrase, but in its intimate connection with κpeíTTOV, which latter term marks a difference, not in degree but in kind—a difference in the nature or being of the Son. Thus, in Prov. viii. 11, where wisdom is compared with precious stones, the language [of the Septuagint] is: Kpelтτων σοφία λίθων πολυτελῶν, while there is confessedly an essential difference in the nature of wisdom and of precious

stones respectively. The Son, accordingly, describes the Father, in John xiv. 28, not as xpeίTтwv but as μeilov, because they are not different in their nature or being. There is no affinity between the nature of the Son, on the one hand, and that of angels or creatures, on the other; for the apostle could not have otherwise described the former as God, the creator of the world, and eternal (Heb. i. 8, 10, 11). The contrast here made between the Son and the angels presupposes, not a similarity, but a difference, of nature or being; the sense is: The service of the Son is as much exalted above that of the angels, as the Son differs in rank and character from a servant. For the law, which was ordained by angels, made no one perfect (Gal. iii. 19; Heb. vii. 19), whereas the incarnation of the Son perfected the Father's work. Furthermore, during the time of the law, which was received by the disposition of angels, death reigned, from Adam to Moses (Acts vii. 53; Rom. v. 14), whereas the manifestation of the Logos abolished death (2 Tim. i. 10). At an earlier period God was known in Judea alone, but now the whole earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord; the disciples have taught all nations, and the words are fulfilled: "They shall be all taught of God" (John vi. 45). So, too, in other passages of the epistle (Heb. vii. 22; viii. 6; vii. 19; ix. 23), the apostle refers to the exalted character of the office of Christ as compared with that of the angels, as well as to their essential difference, and again employs the term xpeĺTTWv. Thus this term is applied, throughout the whole epistle, to the Lord, for the reason that he is different from all creatures (c. Ar. 1. 55-59).

The Arians also adduced Heb. vii. 22 (Kaтà TоσOÛтоV KρEÍтτονος διαθήκης γέγονεν ἔγγυος Ἰησοῦς), as they claimed that the conception of Christ as a creature lay in the expression yéyove. Here, too (Athanasius replies), the word does not, in the most remote degree, refer to the ovcía of the Son, but to his incarnation and to his redeeming work, in view of which latter he was made [became] flesh; inasmuch as that which, according to Rom. viii. 3, the law of the old covenant

could not do, was performed by him, when he redeemed us from sin and death by his vicarious sufferings, and enabled us to walk in the Spirit (c. Ar. 1. 60). Even as we cannot assert of the Father that he had begun to be in time, in respect to his nature or being, when we read in Ps. ix. 10 (Sept.): ἐγένετο κύριος καταφυγὴ τῷ πένητι, or elsewhere meet with analogous expressions; so, too, expressions like the one just described in Heb. vii. 22, cannot be referred to the nature, being, or essence of the Son, but are to be explained in reference to that salvation which he wrought out for man (1. c. 62, 63).

No passage of the New Testament was, however, more frequently quoted by the Arians than Phil. ii. 5-11. The controversy, as far as this passage is concerned, was conducted by Athanasius, c. Ar. 1. 37-45. The Arians,

he says, attempt to prove from Phil. ii. 9, 10 and Ps. xlv. 8 [Sept.; vs. 7 in the Eng. trans.], that the Lord was exalted as a reward of his virtue, and that in view of this exaltation he was called the Son of God and God. But if this be true, the Son would not be the Son in any other sense than that wherein others are such; he would be the Son, not by nature but by grace; he would continue to be the Son only so long as his moral deportment did not exhibit any change (1. c. 37). He would, moreover, be the Son of God only since the time of his incarnation, and of the obedience which, after that event, he rendered to God, for such is the source or ground of his exaltation, according to Phil. ii. 7, 8, 10. But then, what was he previously to his incarnation? Either he was somewhat else than the Son, or he did not yet at all exist. Now the latter is precisely the heresy of the Jews and the Samosatenians [adherents of the doctrine of Paul of Samosata], and, consequently, the Arians should, like the Jews, submit to circumcision, and resign the name of Christians. If Christ did not exist before his incarnation, or in consequence of that event acquired a higher character, how could all things have been made through him, or how could the