have life in himself. The perfect one from the perfect one, because the whole is from the whole (totus a toto); without division or abscission,-because the one is in the other, and the fulness of the Godhead is in the Son. The incomprehensible from the incomprehensible; for no one knows them, and only they have mutual knowledge. The invisible from the invisible; for he is the image of the invisible God, and moreover he who hath seen the Son hath seen the Father. One person from another one; for there is Father and Son. The nature [natura=ovola] of the Godhead is not one and another, for both are one. God of God; the only begotten God of the unbegotten God. There are not two Gods, but one of one; there are not two unbegotten, for there is one born of him who was unborn; the one differs in nothing from the other, because the life of the living One is in the living One.

"These things have we touched upon respecting the nature of the Godhead, not professing to comprehend even the sum of intelligence respecting it, but knowing that we speak of things incomprehensible.

"You will say, then, 'There is no duty for faith to perform here, if there is nothing that may be comprehended.' But it is not so; faith acknowledges it to be a duty, to know that what she is inquiring into, is incomprehensible.

If there be any one now, who can read this with indifference, or turn away from it with a kind of disgust because he looks upon it as a declamatory production of enthusiastic feeling, I acknowledge that I have no sympathies with him in this respect. I cannot refrain from looking upon the whole strain, and on many others of the like nature in the same author, as the result of high and intense effort to express some of the most sacred and reverential feelings that the soul can have in its present imperfect state, toward the glorious Godhead which is revealed in the gospel. That the author of the views just recited has failed in consistency and perspicuity of representation, we may attribute to the extreme difficulties in which the subject was involved, as it came before his mind; difficulties belonging to the age rather than to him.

But that he has not done as well in the expression of his thoughts at all events as eloquently and forcibly-as has been done by any writer of antiquity, or by most in modern times, candour will hardly deny. I feel myself constrained to reverence such an attitude of soul as he manifests, wherever I meet

with it; and this, even if the speculative views which the writer cherishes should not bear the light of critical and logical examination. But to our present purpose.

The whole tenor of the above extract leaves no room for doubt, that Hilary regarded the doctrine of eternal generation, as implying a conveyance of the essence or substance of the Father to the Son; yet without abscission or division. It is certain that nearly all divine attributes are particularized by him, one after another. If there could be any doubt as to this in the minds of any candid reader, that doubt, it would seem, must be removed by the phrase totus a toto, near the close of the extract; which I have distinctly marked. Indeed the whole tenor of the writings of the ancient Fathers, who defend the principles of the Nicene Creed, puts it beyond reasonable doubt, that they held a communication of the substance (ix rns ovoias) of the Father to the Son; on which account the Son was and is God, and the object of divine worship. The modern view of Trinitarians, viz., that the Father begets only the personality (vnóoTaois, persona, поóбшлоv) of the Son and Spirit, is a nicety in philosophical discussion, from which the ancient Fathers were at a great remove. That the Father communicated the whole of himself to the Son, ovoados, substantialiter, is what they assert so often and in so many ways, that doubt concerning it would seem to be impossible.

Indeed the Nicene Creed itself speaks so plainly on this point, that I must confess it to be a matter of wonder with me, that modern theologians have so little noticed the great difference there is, between the real doctrine of that Creed and the modern view of personality in the Godhead which is general among the most intelligent writers. Even in those Christian communities who have adopted the Nicene Symbol into their formula of belief, the leading theologians hold to numerical unity of substance in the Godhead; and of course, that the substance or essence of the Godhead in the Son and Spirit was not begotten; and consequently, that only the personality of the second and third persons in the Trinity is of a derived nature.

But here I shall doubtless be asked: And did not the Nicene Fathers and their adherents believe also in the numerical unity of the substance of the Godhead?' And before I proceed any further in my remarks on the Nicene Creed, I must crave the liberty of stopping for a few moments in order to pursue this inquiry. I do this merely because it has so important and ex

tensive a bearing on most that has been or will be said, in relation to the present topic.

The great contest in respect to the meaning of this Creed, and particularly in relation to the point now before us, has turned upon the words ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί. Did the Nicene fathers mean, that the Son is numerically of the same substance with the Father? Or did they mean merely that there is a specific unity of substance in both Father and Son, i. e. that the species of substance is of the same nature in both, or (in other words) that the kind of substance in both is the same; in like manner as Adam and Seth, both having a human nature in common, were oμoovoio? These are questions that have been often disputed; and yet, as the subject appears to my mind, they are questions that may be satisfactorily answered in a brief way.

If

There can be no doubt, that the word ouoovolos is usually appropriated to designate a unity, which is predicated of things belonging to the same species or having a common nature. it ever has a different meaning, (as some of the Fathers do occasionally assert), it is merely because it is catachrestically employed, i. e. in a sense different from that of common usage.

In order now to answer the questions proposed above, we must survey the current of opinion in relation to the point of inquiry, both before and after the publication of the Nicene Creed; before this, because we cannot suppose that there was a sudden leap made by the Nicene fathers, and a wide chasm. in opinion between them and their immediate predecessors; after this, because the friends and advocates of the Nicene Symbol, who were cotemporary with it, or nearly so, must be supposed best to have understood the meaning of ouoovaios to πατρί.

In presenting the opinions of the fathers who preceded the Council of Nice, I can refer only to the most distinguished of them; and this, in a brief manner. The nature of my present design does not allow me to do any thing more.*

:

I quote the opinions of the Fathers by giving a translation merely because the room cannot be spared here for the original, inasmuch as so many notes containing this must necessarily be subjoined to the Essay of Schleiermacher. Once for all, and to save time and trouble as to any references, or as to doubts about correctness, I refer the reader to Münscher's Dogmengeschichte, I. § 91 seq. whose consummate skill in patristical learning is not called in ques

Justin Martyr names the Son duvaus dεov; by which however, he does not mean an attribute, but an intelligent agent, springing from God. In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew (pp. 221, 222, edit. Colon.), he labours at large to prove from Gen. 19: 26, that the Father, who is God invisible, must be a different person from the God which appeared to Abraham, whom he holds to have been the Son. In p. 152 of the same work, he says in so many words, that the Logos is different from the Father, and ἕτερον αρίθμῳ, οὐ γνωμῇ; where unity of number or numerical unity is very explicitly denied, while the oneness of the Logos with the Godhead is explained as a oneness of will or sentiment.

That such must have been the opinion of Justin, as well as of Theophilus and Tatian, must be evident from the fact, that all three of these early teachers, held to the doctrine of a Logos ἐνδιάθετος and Logos προφορικός. That is, according to them, the Logos was not from eternity a hypostasis or existing agent, separate from the Father; but was in God as his reason or understanding. When the world was created; when God said: Let there be light, and there was light; then the Logos, which before had been in God merely as his reason or understanding, became a Logos noоçooxós, i. e. reason or thought was uttered in words; and these words became a substance, a hypostasis, a separate and animate and rational Being, the Creator of the world, the Son of the Father. His Word, which had from everlasting been reposing in him as reason, now became visible, or was presented to the perception of intelligent beings.

Such is the Logos of Justin, Theophilus, and Tatian. All

tion; and whose almost universal fairness of representation stands unimpeached. There, and in a masterly discussion of the same author, on the sense of the Nicene Creed relative to the very point now in question, which is printed in Henke's Neu. Magazin, VI. p. 334 seq., the reader may find ample illustration and confirmation of all that is now to be said, in relation to the views of the Fathers, with quotations for the most part from the originals. The same thing for substance he may find in Martini's Geschichte des Logos, with ample quotations; and in Keilii Opuscula, de Doctoribus, etc. Comm. IV. But besides these general references, in order that the reader may guard against mistakes that I might make, I give him, for the most part, the particular places in each father, where the sentiment quoted is to be found.

these agree, moreover, that the personality of the Logos, i. e. his becoming prophoric, depended on the will of the Father, and not on any necessity in his own nature; see Münscher, Dogmengesch. I. § 93. Nothing can be plainer or more certain, then, than that a numerical unity of substance in the Godhead, could form no part of the system of doctrine which these fathers embraced respecting the Trinity.

The views of Athenagoras are not capable, perhaps, of being definitely ascertained. There is no doubt, however, that he adopted the idea of Logos ἐνδιάθετος and προφορικός. But whether the latter was hypostatized by him or not, is still disputed among adepts in patristical lore. Münsch. ubi sup. p. 409 seq.

Irenaeus has occasionally given the most noble example in all antiquity, of aversion to speculative and philosophical disquisitions, in order to explain the origin or generation of the Word or Son of God. 66 He," says this excellent Father, "who speaks of the Logos (reason) of God, and maintains that this came forth out of him-he makes God a composite being; just as if God was one thing, and his original reason another. . . . The prophet says: His generation—who will narrate it? [Is. 53:8]. But you [i. e. those who make the explanations in question about a Logos prophoric, etc.] indulge in conjectures respecting his generation, and compare the utterance of human words with the generation of the Logos; whereby you only shew, that you understand neither things human nor divine;" Adv. Haer. I. 10.

This is laying a heavy hand upon some of the speculating theologians of his time. But this is not all.

"When any one inquires of us," says he, "how the Son was produced from the Father? Our answer is, that no one knows. Since his generation is inexplicable, they do not know what they pretend to know, who undertake to explain it. . . . A word which proceeds from our understanding we can comprehend. How then can they lay claim to having made great discoveries, who apply these well known matters to the only begotten Logos of God, and represent his inexplicable birth in a way as definite, quasi ipsi obstetricaverint;" Adv. Haeres. II. c. 28. § 6.

This is caustic irony, to be sure; yet one can hardly say that it was not in a good measure deserved, by some of the prophoric and endiathetic speculations of the day.

In accordance with these enlightened views, Irenaeus casts