orthodox manner concerning the Son: and Athanasius would never have quoted him among the AnteNicene testimonies to the consubstantiality of the Father and Son, if he had known him to be as heterodox, as Photius has represented him. Athanasius may perhaps lead us to the true solution of this question, when after quoting the passage, he adds, "Such are the words of Theognostus, who "after stating certain arguments by way of exer"cise, proceeds to deliver his own opinion." His own opinion, if it is to be collected from his own words, can hardly be mistaken: and it is the more valuable, because Athanasius advances it as the first proof, that the fathers, who lived before the council of Nice, did not decline to speak of the Son as begotten of the substance of the Father. The words of Athanasius would lead us to place Theognostus earlier than Dionysius of Alexandria: but I have prefixed the date which is conjectured by Cave. The testimony of this father is as follows:

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"The substance of the Son is not something "which was extrinsic and adventitious, nor was it 'superinduced from things which once had no ex"istence; but it was produced from the substance "of the Father, like the effulgence of light, and "the vapour of water: for the effulgence is not "the very sun, nor the vapour the very water;

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nor yet is it something different; but it is an "efflux from the substance of the Father, which "substance did not undergo partition: for as the

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sun continues the same, and is not diminished by "the rays which proceed from it, so neither does

"the substance of the Father undergo alteration,

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by having the Son an image of itself."

In my former work I adduced no testimony from any writer, who flourished after the year 325, in which the first general council was held at Nice. The object of the work required me to stop at that period: but perhaps it would not have been unfair, if I had quoted from authors, who were present at the council, but who had recorded their opinions in writing before the Arian controversy began. Even Alexander himself, the bishop of Alexandria, who was the cause of the Arian doctrines being examined before a council, might be cited as a witness to the novelty of the doctrines. It is plain that he thought them contrary to those which he had received from his predecessors, or he would not have felt it his duty to punish the maintainers of them. Nor was it only the zeal of the orthodox bishop, which stepped forward to check the innovation. council of nearly 100 bishops was assembled from Libya and Egypt, all of whom agreed in drawing up an anathema against Arius and his followers. The sentiments of Alexander may be learnt from three of his epistles, which are still extant. He

* Οὐκ ἔξωθεν τίς ἐστιν ἐφευρεθεῖσα ἡ τοῦ Υἱοῦ οὐσία, οὐδὲ ἐκ μὴ ὄντων ἐπεισήχθη· ἀλλὰ ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Πατρὸς οὐσίας ἔφυ, ὡς τοῦ φωτὸς τὸ ἀπαύγασμα, ὡς ὕδατος ἀτμίς· οὔτε γὰρ τὸ ἀπαύγασμα, οὔτε ἡ ἀτμὶς, αὐτὸ τὸ ὕδωρ ἐστιν, ἢ αὐτὸς ὁ ἥλιος· οὔτε ἀλλότριον, ἀλλὰ ἀπόῤῥοια τῆς τοῦ Пarpos ovσías, où μepioμòr iñoμerνάσης τῆς τοῦ Πατρὸς οὐσίας. ὡς γὰρ μένων ὁ ἥλιος ὁ αὐτὸς οὐ μειοῦται ταῖς ἐκχεομέναις ὑπ ̓ αὐτοῦ αὐ

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γαῖς, οὕτως οὐδὲ ἡ οὐσία τοῦ Πατρὸς ἀλλοίωσιν ὑπέμεινεν, εἰκόνα ἑαυτῆς ἔχουσα τὸν Υἱόν. Athanas. de Decret. Syn. Nic. 25. p. 230.

t A letter to Alexander, bishop of Constantinople. (Theodoret, I. 4.) Α letter to the clergy of the catholic church. (Socrat. I. 6. published more accurately inter op. Athanas. vol. I. p. 397.) A letter to the clergy of Alexandria and Mare

speaks unequivocally of believing the divinity of Christ, and appeals to the consent of ancient writers upon the controverted points. The tenets of the Arians are explained with great minuteness; from which we learn, that the opposite of these tenets, the eternity of the Son, his generation by the Father, and their consubstantiality, were held by the Alexandrian bishop and his clergy as fully and unequivocally, as they were afterwards defined by his illustrious successor Athanasius. He also as plainly rejects the Sabellian interpretation, which had been put upon those passages, which speak of the unity of the Father and the Son; so that whatever may be thought of the polemical violence of the orthodox party, (and both parties were perhaps in this respect equally blameable,) it is at least certain as a matter of fact, that the Trinitarian doctrine was held by nearly all the clergy, when the controversy first began. Alexander mentions only three bishops, five presbyters, and six deacons, who supported Arius in his heresy; and without supposing these persons to have been actuated by improper motives, (a suspicion, which is more than insinuated against some of them,) it is only reasonable to decide, that the sentiments of so small a minority are not to be weighed against the deliberate declaration of the whole catholic church ".

There are perhaps some treatises of the great Athanasius himself, which might be quoted upon the same principle, as having been composed before

otis (published by Coteler. Not. ad Const. Apost. viii. 28. and inter op. Athanas. p. 396.)

u Some excellent remarks concerning the orthodoxy of

Alexander may be seen in Dr. Randolph's Letter to the Remarker on the Layman's Scriptural Confutation, p. 124, &c.

the appearance of the Arian controversy. Athanasius was born about the year 296, so that he was twenty-nine years old, when he attended the council of Nice and since he was chosen bishop of Alexandria in the year immediately following the council, he must already have arrived at considerable celebrity. He had probably been known as a writer before that time: and Montfaucon, the Benedictine editor of his works, supposes two of his treatises, the Oratio contra Gentes, and that de Incarnatione Verbi, (which are perhaps parts of the same treatise,) to have been written before the commencement of the Arian heresy. The doctrine of the Trinity is frequently and explicitly maintained in both these compositions.

Eusebius is another writer, who must have distinguished himself before the time of the council of Nice, and had probably published expressions concerning the nature of Christ, before the Arian controversy had given to that subject its paramount importance. It has not however been proved, that any of his works, which are now extant, were composed before the period which I have taken as limiting these testimonies: and some persons would add, that the sentiments of Eusebius are rather to be quoted on the other side, since it is well known, that both in ancient and modern times he has been suspected of Arianism. The charge was brought formerly by Athanasius, Epiphanius, Hilarius, Jerom, and others; and has been repeated by Baronius, Petavius, Le Clerc, and several later writers. For a defence of Eusebius from these attacks, I would refer the reader to Cave's Dissertation, which he wrote expressly upon this subject, and to his

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Apologetical Epistle directed against the arguments of Le Clerc. Cave has brought many passages from the writings of Eusebius, which, if they stood alone, could hardly be interpreted in any but the orthodox sense. He speaks of the divinity of Christ in terms which it would seem impossible for an Arian to have used: and yet there are other passages, from which an Arian would infer, that his own tenets had been held by Eusebius. Many instances might be brought forward in support of either opinion; but since this has been done so copiously in the works, to which I have referred, it is not necessary to repeat them. I shall only adduce one instance from the commentary upon St. Luke, which has lately been published by Angelo Mai Y, but was not known to Cave. It is upon those words in the genealogy of our Saviour, (Luke iii. 38,) where Adam is called the Son of God: upon which Eusebius observes, "The evangelist began the ge"nealogy from the new Adam, and carried it up "to the old. He then says, who was the son of God, that is, who was from God: for Adam has "no man for his father, but God formed him. You "will observe also that he begins from the human "nature of Christ, and then carries up the genea"logy to his divinity, as much as to shew that "Christ had a beginning as man, but had no beginning as God."

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I have translated this passage, because it has not

× They are both printed at the end of the Historia Literaria, in the edition of 1743.

• Scriptorum Veterum Nova Collectio. Romæ, 1825. vol. I. p. 108.

7 Ορα δὲ ὅτι ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀρξάμενος εἰς τὴν θεότητα αὐτοῦ τὸν λόγον τῆς γενεαλογίας ἀνήγαγε, δείξας τὸν Χριστὸν ἠργμένον μὲν ὡς ἄνθρωπον, ἄναρχον δὲ ὡς Θεόν.