" ten of God, and before all created things :” and again, "he was begotten of the Father, and was "with the Father before any thing was created "." Origen makes God say of the Son, "I have begotten thee before every reasonable creaturei;” and in another place he says, "the image of the invisible " God, begotten before every creature, is incapable of “ death k;” a position which would not be true, if Christ were created'. The Arians do not appear at first to have quoted this text, when they wished to prove that Christ was a creature, κτίσμα: for Eusebius, who denied this, notices all the passages of scripture which might seem to support the doctrine, but takes no notice of this m. It seems, however, that they afterwards quoted the text in support of their own doctrine ". See Waterland's Works, vol. 3. p. 35. IGNATIUS, A. D. 107. Ignatius was bishop of Antioch. Theodoret says that he was appointed by St. Peter, and the Apo 3 Πρωτότοκον τοῦ Θεοῦ, καὶ πρὸ πάντων τῶν κτισμάτων. Dial. cum Tryph. 100. p. 195. ἡ Τοῦτο τὸ τῷ ὄντι ἀπὸ τοῦ πα τρὸς προβληθὲν γέννημα πρὸ πάντων τῶν ποιημάτων συνῆν τῷ πατρί. Dial. cum Tryph. 62. p. 159. i · Πρὸ πάσης λογικῆς φύσεως ἐγέν νησά σε. In Psalm. cx. 3. vol. II. p. 787. Κ' Ανεπίδεκτος γὰρ ἡ εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου προτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως θανάτου. In Joan. tom. XXVIII. 14. vol. IV. p. 392. 1 Athanasius marks this distinction very plainly when he says, speaking of the text, Col. I. 16, 17. ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ m Socrates, II. 21. p. 107. stolical Constitutions P say that it was by St. Paul. However this may have been, it seems certain that he succeeded Euodius in the see of Antioch, and probably about the year 69 or 70: according to which date he might easily have conversed with the apostles, as Chrysostom expressly says that he did 9. Some writers have repeated the foolish story of his having been the child whom our Saviour took in his arms, Matt. xviii. 2. and of his receiving the name of Theophorus from this circumstance. That he had this title is true, but Pearson has unanswerably proved that the story is a fiction. He was sent from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed to wild beasts in the amphitheatre: and if we could ascertain the precise year of his martyrdom, we should also fix the date of his Epistles; for they were all written while he was on his journey to Rome. Some writers have assigned this event to the year 107: while others have thought that it did not take place till 116. His Epistles are seven in number, addressed to the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Rome, Philadelphia, and Smyrna, and to his fellow-martyr Polycarp. The genuineness of these Epistles has been called in question; but if ever there was a work, which from exhausting the subject and compelling conviction might be pronounced unanswerable and unanswered, it is the Vindication of these Epistles by bishop Pearson ". The same opinion has been entertained by I. Vossius, P VII. 46. 1 Tom. I. Hom. 42. in Ignat. p. 562. Vindic. Ignat. pars II. 12. (p. 411. ed. Coteler.) Lardner. t Pearson, Lloyd, Pagi, Le Clerc, Fabricius. u Vindicia Epistolarum S. Ignatii, 1672. Usher, Hammond, Petavius, Grotius, Bull, Cave, Wake, Cotelerius, Grabe, Du Pin, Tillemont, Le Clerc, Mosheim, Lardner, Horsley, &c. &c. These are great names, the authority of which can hardly be set aside by that of Salmasius, Blondel, and Dallæus, who have rejected the Epistles, although we may add Dr. Priestley to the number, who has told us that "the genuineness of them is generally given "up by the learned." This presumptuous falsehood is chastised, as it deserved, by Horsley, to whom the reader is referred for an account of the larger or interpolated edition of Ignatius, which was published for the first time in 1557, and of the shorter or genuine edition, which was published by I. Vossius in 1646. It may be added, that though Dr. Priestley made this unwarrantable assertion, he allowed that the proofs of our Lord's divinity which Horsley adduced from Ignatius, were true according to our present copies. 11. Ignatii Epist. ad Eph. c. 1. vol. II. p. 11. The first Epistle of Ignatius is addressed to the Ephesians, and the title of it contains the following words: " Ignatius to the church at Ephesus"which was preordained before the worlds--according to the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ 66 66 our God y." The same expression of "Jesus "Christ our God" occurs in the title of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, p. 25. The Epistle begins thus: "I approve in God of "the much beloved name which ye have justly obtained, by faith and love in Jesus Christ our Sa"viour. Being imitators of God, having animated 66 x Works, IV. p. 133. Y ἐν θελήματι τοῦ πατρὸς, καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν. "yourselves by the blood of God, ye have performed "perfectly the congenial work"." In this passage the term blood obliges us to refer the annexed term God to Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for us. The blood of God is certainly a very strong expression but it was not unusual with the Fathers; and seems to afford an additional confirmation of the received reading in Acts xx. 28. feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. Instead of cou, God, in Acts xx. 28. some MSS. and other authorities read Kupiov, Lord, and Kupíov καὶ Θεοῦ, Lord and God: for the reading ἐκκλησίαν Xpiorov, church of Christ, being supported by no Greek MS. whatever, does not deserve to be considered. Of the two other readings, the only one which requires us to weigh the evidence is that of Kupiov, Lord: for divinity will be equally attributed to Christ, whether St. Paul called him God, or Lord and God. Of the two readings, God and Lord, it may be observed, that the Vatican MS. which is perhaps of the highest authority and antiquity of all, has cov, God. The MS. was examined in this passage for the London edition of Griesbach's New Testament published in 1818, and is found to contain this readinga; of which the Unitarian translators appear not 66 to have been aware, who say in p. 331. of their Improved Version, "that the received text reads God upon the authority of no MS. of note or value b." This is also the reading of the oldest MSS. of the Syriac version, which is supposed to have been made early in the second century, if not at the end of the first. Thus, though the authority for Kupiov, Lord, is also very respectable, the oldest MS. and the oldest version support the reading of Oεou, God: to which it may be added, that the expression, church of God, occurs in not fewer than eleven passages of St. Paul's Epistles; whereas the phrase, church of the Lord, occurs nowhere in the New Testament. It comes more within the object of the present work to shew what is the authority for either reading, according to the quotations which the AnteNicene Fathers have made of this passage. The usual statement is, that Ignatius and Tertullian b Griesbach, as is well known, sums up the evidence decidedly against the reading of e: but it must be remembered, that he names many MSS. in his preface, of which he had no collations or very imperfect ones: and though he states that no good MS. reads to, it is probable that he must have qualified this assertion, if he had been better acquainted with some of his MSS. Thus he was ignorant of the fact, mentioned above, that the Vatican MS. reads Θεοῦ. He also takes no notice of the Florentine MSS. numbered by himself 84 and 89. Dr. Elmsley examined these at Florence, and both of them read Θεοῦ. Griesbach considers the former to be of the tenth century, the latter of the eleventh. Dr. E. also examined those numbered 87 and 88, and found them to read Kupio kaì Qeoũ. A MS. in the library at Christ Church, which was considered by archbishop Wake to be 700 years old, reads kupio kai beo, and another which appears also to be of the eleventh century, reads e. I assert this on the authority of professor Lee, who has not yet published an account of his collations of Syriac MSS. : but he has stated it in some remarks, which may be seen in Dr. Wait's translation of Hug's Introduction, vol. I. p. 370. |