"stood. Therefore, let those Anti-Christs, who "deny the Father and the Son, take heed to "themselves." But the words of Novatian * on John viii. 14, 15, " Though I bear record of my"self, yet my record is true; for I know whence "I came and whither I go; but ye cannot tell "whence I come, and whither I go. Ye judge "after the flesh," are still more to the purpose. "Behold, here he says, that he will return thi"ther whence he came, having been sent from "heaven. He descended whence he came, as "he goes thither whence he descended. There"fore, if Christ had been only a man, he could "not have come thence; but by coming whence << man cannot come, he shows himself to have "been God who came. Now the Jews being “ignorant, and not aware of his descent, have "substituted these heretics their heirs; to whom "it is said, Ye cannot tell whence I come and "whither I go, ye judge after the flesh. These, "like the Jews, acknowledge only the nativity "of Christ in the flesh, and believe him to be no more than man, not considering that as man " he could not come from heaven and be able to "return thither, for he must be God who de"scended thence whence man could not come."+ XI. To the same purport are the words of the author (whoever he was, though ascribed to Ig • Novatian flourished about A. D. 251. (T.) natius,) of the epistle to Hiero the deacon. He is worthy of attention, as he condemns the heresy of those who deny the divinity of Christ, as a Jewish impiety and blasphemy. His words are : "Whoever says that the Lord is a mere man, is "a Jew, a murderer of Christ." He, who is probably the same author, uses much the same words in an epistle to the Antiochians, where he wishes them to throw off every Jewish and "Gentile error, neither to introduce a plurality "of Gods, nor, under the pretence of worshipping one God, to deny Christ." He also adds, "Every one, then, that so preaches one God as "to destroy the divinity of Christ, is a child of "the Devil, and an enemy to all righteousness.' XII. Lastly, the great Athanasius† hath, in his own elegant manner, excellently expressed the opinion of the primitive Catholic church on this point. "The Jews," he observes," have nu"merous and weighty objections against idolaters, " and justly so; accusing them of serving the "creature instead of the Creator. But their cen"suring of impiety does not constitute them pious, "while they deny the Son of God, by whom all "things were made, and charge those with poly"theism who worship the Father through him. "We have, therefore, come out from among the * Hiero was a Deacon of the Church at Antioch, over which Ignatius was Bishop. (T.) + Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria in A. D. 326. He died A. D. 373. (T.) "Gentiles, and are separated from them, that we "may not mingle with their impure idolatries. "We also differ from the blasphemy of the Jews " in confessing the Son of God." Afterwards he adds: "We are separated from the Judaizers "who corrupt Christianity with Judaism, denying him who is God of God, and say with the "Jews, that there is one God; not teaching that "as he is unbegotten, the fountain of Deity; but "as being without a Son, a living word and true "wisdom." What follows is highly worth reading, especially what he says on John, ch. I. ver. 1. There, that renowned man proves from reason as well as from the passage, that God cannot be rightly conceived to be One, in the sense of the Jews, and Judaizing heretics; namely, that he should be one person; since it is necessary, that God, who is an eternal Mind, should have in him and with him his own Word, not such as is human, but a living and a subsisting Word, a person. And as the Word proceeds from God the Father, he must be a divine person, distinct from the Father; yet as the Word is in the Father and the Word of the Father, it must be one God with the Father. But this is not the place for discussing this subject. XIII. It will not be foreign to the subject, to glance at the opinion of the Jews concerning the Messiah, before I finish this chapter. That their prophets have, throughout their writings, plainly signified that the Messiah was to be God and man, has been sufficiently shown by Justin Martyr * among the ancients. And that the more thinking part of the Hebrew teachers were not ignorant of it, has been fully proved by the most noble and learned Du Plessis † among the moderns.— Yet, it is certain that the greatest part of the Jews, in the days of Christ, had but a mean and abject opinion of their Messiah, imagining that he should be no more than man. Indeed we read in Matthew xxii. 42, that our most holy Jesus, when he wished to entangle the captious Jews, interrogated them thus:-" What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is he?" For when the Pharisees answered, "the Son of David" (as they expected a Messiah who would be merely the son of David, not dreaming of the Son of God), our Lord immediately pressed them with this enigmatical question in ver. 48-45: "How then doth David in spirit "call him Lord; saying, the Lord said unto my "Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make "thine enemies thy footstool. If David, then, "call him Lord, how is he his son?" To his question none of the Pharisees could return an answer. This they might easily have done, had they believed in the divinity of the Messiah. They might have said, that Christ would indeed be the son of David, according to the flesh; but his Lord, as it respects his divine nature. * Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. This opinion of the Jews, had undoubtedly its origin in their gross and carnal conception of the Messiah. An opinion which that nation had formed by its own carnal and earthly disposition. For they expected that the Messiah should be a renowned King, conquering by power, riches, and arms. That he would enable the Jewish nation to sway the sceptre of dominion over all the nations of the earth; and having subdued the enemies of his people, laid haughty Rome, the empress of nations, in ruins, he would advance Jerusalem to her imperial dignity, and constitute her the metropolis of the whole world. In such a Messiah as this, was there any need of divinity? Might not all these have been accomplished by a Cyrus, by an Alexander, or by a Cæsar, with the co-operation of Divine Providence? Would not such a worldly kingdom have been unworthy of God? It is not strange, if the Jews who entertained such notions of a Messiah, should object to the acknowledging of his divine nature. XIV. That there should be now, or at any time, those among Christians who have been taught more holy and more sublime things of their Saviour, and yet imagine him to be a mere man, or only a creature, exceeds belief. To omit those passages in the Old Testament which immediately respect his divinity, in which he is declared to be the Son of God, and God before all worlds, by whom all things were made; (places indeed so numerous and so plain, that he must |