LEO MAGNUS, A. D. 450.

Sermo 3, in Nativitate Domini, Cap. 1. "Not only to that mysterious birth of the co-eternal Son, before all ages, of the eternal Father, but also to his birth whereby the Word was made flesh, relates the prophecy. Isaias LIII, 8. Who shall declare his generation? Therefore God the Son of God is equal to the Father, and of the same nature with the Father, the Lord and Creator of the universe, present, whole everywhere, in the order of times which by his disposition roll on, he selected this day for his nativity of the blessed Virgin unto the salvation of the world; the integrity of the Virgin remaining inviolate.

Sermo S, Cap. 1. "God the Son of God, the only begotten from the eternal and unbegotten Father, remaining eternal in the form of God, and having unchangeably and eternally the same existence that the Father hath, received the form of the servant without detriment of his majesty, that he might make us partakers of his divinity, and that he might not fail in our humanity."

EUGENIUS CARTHAGINENSIS, A. D. 480.

In confessione fidei ad Hunricum Regem. "We profess that the Father had eternally and ineffably begot of himself, that is, of his own nature, the Son, that the Son was born not extrinsically, not from nothing, not from any passive material, but of God. And that he who is born of God, is not anything else than God, and that he is therefore of the same nature and substance, because the reality of the nativity admits not a diversity of race; for if he were of a different substance from the Father, he would not be a true Son, as John saith: That we be in his true Son. Further, he is not degenerate, because he, the true God, is truly born of God. Hence, the Son is equal to the Father, not born in time, but co-eternal with the Father, as the splendor occasioned by the fire appears co-existent with the fire."

FULGENTIUS, A. D. 500.

Ad Trasimundum Regem, lib. 3, Cap. 3. "We believe therefore that the Son of God was before every beginning whatever, that is, without any beginning of his nativity, born of the Father's substanca, God of God, Lord of Lord, not of nothing, because of the Father, not nominally, because he hath a name from the natural reality, not from any nature, because there was nothing co-eternal with God from which the Son would originate, neither is the Son posterior to, or less than, the Father, but entirely equal to the Father both in the eternity of his immensity and the immensity of his eternity; immutable, the creator of the mutable things; untemporal, the maker of the temporal things, and of the times; whom no place contains, without whom no place can be; who is not called God merely because he was begotten, but is justly believed true God because he is substantially generated of the Father. In being said generated, it is not the name of the divinity in the Son, but the name of the nativity in God; that he who is naturally born of the Father, is true God. He therefore existing eternal with the Father had the one nature with God the Father, but he has assumed of the Father a proper person, because the divine nativity admitted not a division of the natural unity, but it distinguished the person of the subsisting Son from the Father; and the Word, Father, denotes another person, who is the begotten.

Ad Donatum de Fide orthodoxa, Cap. 5. "Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, the Father, in the sense that we are sons. He is the proper Son, we are the redeemed; he is begotten, we are made; he is the true Son, we are the adopted. He the true Son is also true God, not generated by adoption, but naturally begotten of the Father. In whom true God and true Son is consequently the true divinity, because he hath the natural nativity from the Father.

Sermone de duplici Christi Nativitate. "This is not the Word that vanishes when uttered, but that remains, when born,

not transitory but eternal, not made by the Father but begotten, not only begotten, but the only begotten. For God the Father begot of himself one Word, by whom he created all things out of nothing: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: this was in the beginning with God; by him were all things made, and without him was made nothing. And whereas by the Word, God the Father made all things, it is evident that he begot, not made the Word. Consequently, the Word is God of God, Creator from Creator. Therefore the Son is born of God the Father, another person, not another in nature: but always by the Father, with the Father, from the Father; always in the Father."

CASSIODORUS, A. D. 540.

Ad Psal. 54. "God shall hear, and he who is before ages shall humble them. Who is before ages? The Word is signified co-eternal with the Father, that he who created all things would not appear to come into existence at any time. For time then began, when the world took its beginning. Therefore let the insane rashness of the Arians cease to preach the Creator of the times with in a time, whilst the only begotten Son, co-eternal with the Father and consubstantial with the Holy Spirit, unchangeably perseveres.

Ad Psal. 55. "In the Father he promises that he will praise the Son, so that whatever is said of him, is understood also of this. For when we predicate the eternal and omnipotent Father, we confess, without a doubt, the eternal and omnipotent Son for it is one praise in both, whereas the power of both is one, and the glory individual, when the nature is indivisible.

Ad Psal. 109. "One power, one deity, one eternity: the Father saith to the Son, although he neither uttered with the mouth, nor did the Son hear with the ears. For the Father wills, and the Son understands: the Son wills, and the Father knows. But that will is not comprehensible to us, nor can the conception come within the scope of the human senses."

PRIMASIUS, A. D. 540.

Ad Cap. 1, Epist ad Hebræos. "The Apostle shows in a wonderful manner the whole substance of the deity of the Father and of the Son, to exhibit the two persons in glory and splendor. He declares by the splendor, the unity of essence with God the Father; and by the name glory, he expresses the person of God the Father; in the splendor, the person of the Son. And thus the Son is splendor from splendor, as light from light, God from God, brilliancy from brilliancy, beginning from beginning."

CONCILIUM BRACARENSE I, A. D. 572.

Cap. 3. "If any person shall say that the Son of God our Lord had not been, previous to his nativity of the Virgin, as Paul Samosatenus, and Photinus, and Priscilianus said, let him be anathema."

FORTUNATUS, A. D. 580.

In expositione Symboli. "God the Father is an expression of a secret mystery, of whom the Son is truly the Word and mirror, and character, and the living image of the living Father, totally similar to the Father, of the same nature, and born in the divinity, co-equal in all respects to the Father: it is not enquired how he begot the Son, what the angels know not, and what was not discovered by the prophets. Hence that saying His generation who shall announce? Which secret origin the Father alone knows with the Son."

GREGORIUS MAGNUS, A. D. 490,

In Symbolo. "I confess the only begotten, consubstantial Son, and born without time of the Father, creator of all things, visible and invisible, light of light, true God of true God, the splendor of glory, the figure of substance.

Lib. 23, in Job, Cap. 11. "The Father begot the Word without time. And who could suitably declare that ineffable nativity; that God the co-eternal is born of the eternal, that God existing before ages begot his equal, that God the begotten is not posterior to the sire ?"

CON. TOLETANUM V, A. D. 620.

Cap. 1. "The Son was begotten of the Father, not created, without time, before all creation, without a beginning. The Father never existed without the Son, nor the Son without the Father. However, God the Son is of God the Father, not God the Father from God the Son; and that Son of the Father, and God from the Father is co-equal with the Father in every respect, true God of true God."

ISODORUS HISPALENSIS, A. D. 620.

De Nativitate Domini, Cap. 1. "To defeat the Jews we have compiled some testimonies from the old Testament, which prove that Christ was born of the omnipotent Father: From the womb I have begot thee before, the day-star. From the womb, that is from the inward and incomprehensible substance of the Father; or that divine and immense secret of the paternal breast from which the Father begot, discharged from his heart the good Word as he himself saith elsewhere: Ps. II, 7. My heart hath uttered a good word; and again the Father speaks: Thou art my Son, to-day have I begot thee."

JOSEPHUS THE JEW.

Libro 18, antiquit. Cap. 4. "At the same time had been Jesus, a wise man, if however, it be allowed by religion to call him man. For he was the doer of many miracles, and the teacher of those who freely receive the truth, and he had many followers from among the Jews and Gentiles. This was that Christ whom when accused by the chiefs of our nation, Pilate