DIáS&RTATION IV. ;318 there wasa son, now there was a time when the son was not." He speaks always of the generation of the Son as a voluntary thing, and brought about in time : He calls this the perfecta na- üvitac sermonis, though the " logos" considered as reason, was in the heart of God from eternity. So Theophilus, libro ii. ad Autolycum, speaks of the Aoy which was always eYSea9E1 IV xapaea 1 but afterwards God generated and produced this Word, ?eKOY TOY `AOyOY Ey,uoer 9rpo opixoY, 9rteTOTO8OY' Yrarseç x wwç, Clemens Alexandrinus, who is a zealous asserter of the deity of the Logos, the divine word or wisdom, speaks of the Sonof God as Tporox,r,, , o4ea, the first created wisdom : And many of the fathersspeak of vortafa, or wisdom, ascreated, when God sent her forth to- make the world, and they imitate herein the words-of the lxx. in Prove viii. 22. "Where wisdom saith " The Lord created me the beginning of his ways." Kvpios Exriso tLE atxr,Y oho seasas Epye ayes, or he made me as his first way towards his other works, as some of them seem to explain it. Not' only the most ancient writers, but even some in the times of the Nicene Council had this notion of the eternal exist- ence of the Logos in God the Fathee, and the production of him as a distinct Son in time, or at least, not co-eternally,. For Athanasius himself speaking concerning Christ, or the Word, says, " He who had an existence before was aftersward begotten into a Son, TOY OYTa Yrpol EpoY, vç,pw ye1871hh,Ta ,,ç uwOY. And the Em- peror Constantine, in Eusebius's letter to the church at Cwsarea, says, that " with respect to his divine generation he had a prior existence before all ages, forasmuch as before his actual generation he was potentially in the Father after an unbegotten manner." And this we may suppose they spoke in direct opposi- tion to the Arian error, who denied Christ to be any thing before he was begotten or born, and which was oneof the errors which was anathematized in the council. Let it be noted also, that though the distinct generation of the Son is not supposed to be co-eternal with the existence of the Logos in the heart ofthe Fa- ther, yet it is by some ofthe ancients described as before all worlds or ages, npo sravrmw aeJYw,, and that must be in some unknown mo- ment of the divine eternity. HI. This Logos,or S'on of God, is represented under vari- ous other characters, which seem to denote an inferiority to the supreme God over all, and would lead one to suppose they l'eight have some idea of an angelic being. He is called frequently an angel by the ancients and yet they say, "It is impious' to call the Supreme God over all an angel." He is acknowledged to " re- ceive all his power from the Father, and that he is subject to the Father ; that in all things he ministers to the will of the Father, and acts by his authority :" He is sometimes said v -4pEr*Y Kai vYropye, to serve the Father or to work under him ; that lie is not
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