Hebrew text in the Chaldee language, were constantly taught, that the Word of God was the same with God, and that by that Word all things were made. Which undoubtedly was the cause why St. John delivered so great a mystery in so few words, as speaking unto them who at the first apprehension understood him. Only that which as yet they knew not was, that this Word was made flesh, and that this Word made flesh was Jesus Christ. Wherefore this exposition being so literally clear in itself, so consonant to the notion of the Word, and the apprehension of the Jews; it is infinitely to be preferred before any such interpretation as shall restrain the most universals to a few particulars, change the plainest expressions into figurative phrases, and make of a sublime truth, a weak, useless, false discourse. For who will grant that " in the beginning" must be the same with that in St. John's first Epistle (i. 1.)" from the beginning, especially when the very interpretation involves in itself a contradiction? For "the beginning" in St. John's Epistle, is that in which the apostles saw, and heard, and touched the Word: "the beginning" in his Gospel was that in which "the Word was with God," that is, not seen nor heard by the apostles,but known as yet to God alone, as the new exposition will have it. Who will conceive it worthy of the apostle's assertion, to teach that the Word had a being in the beginning of the Gospel, at what time John the Baptist began to preach; when we know the Baptist taught as much, who therefore "came baptizing with water, that he might be made manifest unto Israel?" (John i. 31.) when we are sure that St. Matthew and St. Luke, who wrote before him, taught us more than this, that he had a being thirty years before? when we are assured, it was as true of any other then living as of the Word, even of Judas who betrayed him, even of Pilate who condemned him? Again, who can imagine the apostle should assert that the Word was, that is, had an actual being, when as yet he was not actually the Word? For if " the beginning" be, when John the Baptist began to preach, and the Word, as they say, be nothing else

μός του Λόγος ἀπ ̓ οὐρανῶν, xviii. 15. and Siracides xiii. 26. Ἐν Λόγῳ αὐτοῦ σύγκει και πάντα. Nay, the Septuagint hath changed Shaddai, the undoubted name of the omnipotent God, into Aóyos, the Word, Ezek. i. 24. quasi vox sublimis Dei, quod Hebraice appellatur TW, et juxta LXX. v roũ Xóyou, id est, vor Verbi, ut universa quæ prædicantur in mundo vocem Filii Dei esse dicamus.' S. Hieron. ad loc. col. 679. And therefore Celsus, writing in the person of a Jew, acknowledgeth that the Word is the Son of God. Εἴ γε ὁ Λόγος ἐστὶν ὑμῖν υἱὲς τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐπαινοῦμεν. Orig. adv. Celsum, 1. ii. §. 31. And although Origen objects that in this Celsus makes the Jew speak improperly, because the

Jews which he had conversed with, did never acknowledge that the Son of God was the Word; yet Celsus's Jew did speak the language of Philo: but between the time of Celsus and that of Origen (I guess about threescore years), the Jews had learnt to deny that notion of Aéyos, that they might with more colour reject St. John. If then all the Jews, both they which understood the Chaldee exposition, and those which only used the Greek translation, had such a notion of the Word of God; if all things, by their confession, were made by the Word; we have no reason to believe St. John should make use of any other notion than what they before had, and that by means whereof he might be so easily understood.

but he who speaketh, and so revealeth the will of God; Christ had not then revealed the will of God, and consequently was not then actually the Word, but only potentially or by designation. Secondly, It is a strange figurative speech, "the Word was with God," that is, was known to God, especially in this apostle's method. "In the beginning was the Word," there was must signify an actual existence; and if so, why in the next sentence ("the Word was with God") shall the same verb signify an objective being only? Certainly though to be in the beginning be one thing, and to be with God, another; yet to be in either of them is the same. But if we should imagine this being understood of the knowledge of God, why we should grant that thereby is signified, he was known to God alone, I cannot conceive. For the proposition of itself is plainly affirmative, and the exclusive particle only added to the exposition, maketh it clearly negative. Nay more, the affirmative sense is certainly true, the negative as certainly false. For except Gabriel be God who came to the Virgin; except every one of the heavenly host which appeared to the shepherds, be God; except Zachary and Elizabeth, except Simeon and Anna, except Joseph and Mary, be God; it cannot be true that he was known to God only, for to all these he was certainly known. Thirdly, To pass by the third attribute, "and the Word was God," as having occasion suddenly after to handle it; seeing the apostle hath again repeated the circumstance of time as most material, "the same was in the beginning with God," and immediately subjoined those words, "all things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made;" how can we receive any exposition, which referreth not the making of all these things to him in the beginning? But if we understand the latter part of the apostles, who, after the ascension of our Saviour, did nothing but what they were commanded and empowered to do by Christ, it will bear,no relation to the beginning. If we interpret the former, of all which Jesus said and did in the promulgation of the Gospel, we cannot yet reach to the beginning assigned by the new expositors: for while John the Baptist only preached, while in their sense the Word was with God, they will not affirm that Jesus did any of these things that are here spoken of. And consequently, according to their grounds, it will be true to say, 'In the beginning was the Word, and that Word in the beginning was with God, insomuch as in the beginning nothing was done by him, but without him were all things done, which were done in the beginning.' Wherefore, in all reason we should stick to the known interpretation, in which every word receiveth its own proper signification, without any figurative distortion, and is preserved in its due latitude and extension, without any curtailing restriction. And therefore I conclude, from the undeniable testimony of St. John, that in the beginning, when the heavens and the earth and all the

hosts of them were created, all things were made by the Word, who is Christ Jesus being made flesh; and consequently, by the method of argument, as the apostle antecedently by the method of nature, that in the beginning Christ was. He then who was in heaven, and descended from thence before that which was begotten of the Virgin ascended thither, he who was before. John the Baptist and before Abraham, he who was at the end of the first World, and at the beginning of the same; he had a real being and existence, before Christ was conceived by the Virgin Mary. But all these we have already shewed belong unto the Son of God. Therefore we must acknowledge, that Jesus Christ had a real being and existence before he was begotten by the Holy Ghost: which is our first assertion, properly opposed to the Photinians.*

The second assertion, next to be made good, is, that the being which Christ had, before he was conceived by the Virgin,

;

was not any created, but the divine essence, by which he always was truly, really, and properly God. This will evidently and necessarily follow from the last demonstration of the first assertion, the creating all things by the Son of God; from whence we inferred his pre-existence," in the beginning" assuring us as much that he was God, as that he was, "For he that built all things was God." (Heb. iii. 4.) And the same apostle which assures us, "All things were made by him," at the same time tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John i. 3. 1.) Where "In the beginning" must not be denied unto the third proposition, because it cannot be denied unto the second. Therefore" in the beginning, or ever the earth was, the Word was God," (Prov. viii. 23.) the same God with whom he was. For we cannot, with any show of reason, either imagine that he was with one God, and was another, because there can be no more supreme Gods than one; or conceive that the apostle should speak of one kind of God in the second, and of another in the third proposition; in the second, of a God eternal and independent; in the third, of a made and depending God.* Especially, first considering that the eternal God was

tine, verisimilis videris, et proximus salvare, bene faciens nequaquam in utero inducere, quem credidisti Deum.' Facun, ad Justinian. I. iv. c. 2. p. 163.

* And that upon so poor a ground as the want of an article, because in the first place it is, goc Tov tov, in the second, Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος, not ὁ Θεός· from hence to conclude, siç is one God, that is, xar' ἐξοχὴν, the supreme God, Θεός another, not the supreme, but one made God by bim. Indeed, they are beholden to Epiphanius for this observation, whose words are these : Ἐὰν εἴπωμεν, Θεὸς, ἄνευ τοῦ ἄρθρου, τὸν τυχόντα εἴπομεν Θεὸν τῶν ἐθνῶν, ἡ Θεὸν τὸν ὄντα (or rather οὐκ ὄντα)· ἐὰν δὲ εἴπωμεν, ὁ Θεὸς, δῆλον ὡς ἀπὸ τοῦ ἄρθρου, τὸν ὄντα σημαίνομεν ἀληθῆ τε καὶ γινωσκόμενον. Samarit. Hares. ix. §. 4. But whosoever shall apply this rule to the sacred Scriptures will find it most fallacious. In the beginning, ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν y, undoubtedly belongs to the true and supreme God: but it does not thence follow, that πνεῦμα Θεοῦ ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ Caro, should be understood of the spirit of another or inferior God. Certainly St. John (i. 6.) when he speaks of the Baptist, ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ O, meant, he had his commission from heaven; and when it is spoken of Christ, (ver. 12.) ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι, and again, (ver. 13.) ἐκ Θεοῦ iyenSnoay, it must be understood of the true God the Father. In the like manner, (ver. 18.) Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακε πώποτε, if it

were taken ruxvras of any ever called God; nay, even of Christ Jesus as man, it were certainly false. How can then any deny the Word to be the supreme God, because he is called simply Os, when St. John in the four next places, in which he speaketh of the supreme God, mentioneth him without an article? This criticism of theirs was first the observation of Asterius the Arian : Οὐκ εἶπεν ὁ μακάριος Παῦλος Χριστὸν κηρύσσειν τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ δύναμιν, ἢ τὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ σοφίαν, ἀλλὰ δίχα τῆς προσθήκης, δύναμιν Θεοῦ, καὶ Θεοῦ σοφίαν ἄλλην μὲν εἶναι τὴν ἰδίαν αὐτοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ δύνα μιν τὴν ἔμφυτον αὐτῷ καὶ συνυπάρχουσαν ἀγεννήτως, κηρύσσων. These are the words of Asterius recorded by Athanasius, Orat. 2. contra Arianos, §. 37. In which place, notwithstanding, none can deny but to is twice taken without an article for the true and supreme God. Thus Didymus of Alexandria de Sp. S. would distinguish between the person and the gift of the Holy Ghost, by the addition or defect of the article: Apostoli, quando intelligi volunt personam Spiritus Sancti, addunt articulum, Toma, sine quo Spiritus Sancti dona notantur.' Inter oper. S. Hieronym. And Athanasius objects against his adversaries denying the Holy Ghost to be God, that they produced places out of the prophets to prove him a creature, where Tua had not so much as an article prefixed, which might give some colour to interpret it of the Holy Spirit : Οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδ ̓ ἂν τὸ ἄρθρον ἔχῃ τὸ παρὰ τοῦ