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Tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things which are in them, through Jesus Christ, the Son of God; who, of his transcendent love to the work of his hands, submitted to that generation which was of the Virgin."*

By those who have perused the passages already cited from this author, † no doubt can be entertained on the sense in which he understood the title "Son of God." This faith then, he says, had been received from the Apostles, and was received universally. Such is the testimony, be it recollected, of a father but one remove from St. John.

IV. THE CREEDS OF TERTULLIAN.

In the writings of Tertullian there are three forms of the rule of faith; and all in works produced after his lapse to Montanism. The first is short and general,

"The rule of faith indeed is altogether one, and is alone unmovable, and incapable of being remoulded; that is, of faith in the one God Almighty, Maker of the world, and in his Son Jesus Christ, &c." +

V. A second form is thus expressed :- "The rule of faith is that by which we believe that there is indeed one God, nor any other than the Creator of the world, who produced the universe from nothing by his Word, who was sent forth before all things. That Word, called his Son, was seen by the patriarchs, and was at last brought down by the Spirit of the Father, and by power, into the Virgin Mary, made flesh in her womb, and born of her, Jesus Christ.-This rule, instituted by Christ himself, is not the subject of any disputations

* Lib. iii., c. iv., pp. 205, 206.

See Nos. 23-31, sect. iii., above.
De Virgin. veland., c. i., p. 192.

among us, except what heretics introduce, or what make heretics.'

"

VI. The third form, upon the subject in question, is yet more explicit: "As always, so now more especially, having been more fully taught by the Paraclete, who is the guide into all truth, we believe in one God, yet under this dispensation, which we call Economy, that there is a Son of the one God, his Word, who proceedeth from him, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. [We believe] that he was sent from the Father into the Virgin, born of her, God and man, the Son of God, and the son of man, and named Jesus Christ.-This rule has descended from the beginning of the Gospel, even from the very first before heresies."+

VII. THE CREED OF ORIGEN,

the

preaching of the First, That there -Then, that Jesus

found in the work entitled, Teρì ápуwv, or "De Principiis." Unfortunately, this treatise survives only in a Latin version of Rufinus, upon the fidelity of which we cannot place implicit confidence. The following is the form as given in that version :— "This is the representation of those things, which by Apostles were most clearly delivered. is one God, who created all things.Christ was begotten of the Father before every creature; who, though he ministered to the Father in the creation of the universe, (for by him were all things made,) in these last times, emptying himself, was made man; though he was God, yet he was incarnated; and being man, he remained God as he was before." In dilating the truths thus succinctly stated, he thus speaks: "First,

* De Præscript. Hæreticor., c. xiii., xiv., p. 235.

Adv. Prax., c. ii., p. 635.

it behoves us to know that there is in Christ one nature of his Deity, which is the Only Begotten Son of the Father, and another human, which in these last times has been assumed for the dispensation."* The entire chapter in which he treats of Christ is in the same strain.

VIII. SUPPOSITIOUS CREED OF ORIGEN, found in the dialogue against the Marcionites. Being short, it is here annexed entire. "I believe in one God, the Creator and Framer of all things, and in God the Word, who is oF (EK) him, consubstantial and co-eternal; and, in these last times, having taken upon him man, of Mary, was crucified and raised from the dead. I believe also in the Holy Spirit, who exists from eternity."†

The evidence derived from these two documents, though not of the first class, is nevertheless not without force. The alteration in the former, if any such has taken place, is in favour of orthodoxy; the design of Rufinus in his free translation, as he himself intimates, having been to obviate objections which might be alleged against the work, on account of the inaccuracy in some of its expressions. On the other hand, the Dialogue in which Origen is one of the interlocutors, may reasonably be regarded as in harmony with his known opinions. Otherwise the verisimilitude had been lost; nor in that case is it likely that the work would ever have obtained a place among his writings.

IX. THE CREED OF GREGORY THAUMA

TURGUS.

This, if genuine, is one of the most important relics of antiquity; and certainly the evidence in its favour is

* De Principiis, Proem., sect. iv., et lib. i., c. ii., sect. i., T. i., p. 47. De rect. Fid., sect. i., ap. Opp. Origen, T. i., p. 804.

considerable. Gregory Nyssen states that in his age (A.D. 370) it was in the possession of the church of Neocæsarea, in the hand-writing of its author.* Basil, the elder brother of Nyssen, both being Cappadocian Bishops, mentions "The TRADITION of the truly great Gregory," and says, that in his infancy he was taught by his grandmother Macrina "the WORDS of the most blessed Gregory, as she had received them and preserved them in her recollection." He also states that the memory of Gregory was held in such extreme veneration throughout that part of Cappadocia, that the people would not take up any custom, or word, or mystical rite, but what they had received from him; and that his successors in the episcopate, whom he elsewhere mentions with the utmost respect, were extremely vigilant against every degree of innovation.†

The expressions employed by Basil, it is apprehended, may fairly be referred to the composition in question. The term Tradition, especially, is susceptible of this application. Assuming then that the Neocæsarean Christians were what he represents them, and that they possessed a document acknowledged among them as the autograph of the great Gregory, the most probable conclusion seems to be in favour of its genuineness. At all events, it must have been nearly coeval with its reputed author; which is sufficient for our purpose.

Two or three objections may be briefly noticed. It is first alleged, that Nyssen is a witness unworthy of credit, which, were the subject in debate a supernatural narrative, might readily be conceded. But though he undoubtedly retails some extravagant and improbable fictions, whether of his own invention or from the report of others we do not now pause to inquire, yet upon a

* Greg. Nys. Opp., T. iii., p. 546.

† See Lardner, Credibility, p. ii., ch. xlii., pp. 621, &c.

matter of fact so public, no one, with the slightest regard to his reputation, would have ventured on a statement which, if false, could not have remained undetected for an hour.

A second objection is, that the creed treats wholly of the Trinity, and seems therefore rather to belong to the period when the attention of the church was fully absorbed by the Trinitarian controversy. But, on the one hand, we do not know under what circumstances it was written, which might have been such as required a particular exposition of that doctrine; and, on the other, we do know that errors upon this subject were promulgated in the age of Gregory, and that he was present at the first council of Antioch, convened for the suppression of the Samosatean heresy.

After men

But the objection which seems to have the greatest weight is, that no notice is taken of this composition by Jerome. And this certainly would be a strong presumption against it, were its existence the subject controverted. But it is admitted to have been in being in the age of Jerome; and that it was then attributed to Gregory, does not allow of any doubt. Of the literary character of this father, Jerome says little. tioning the Panegyric upon Origen, he adds, "He wrote also a Paraphrase on Ecclesiastes, short indeed, but exceedingly useful. And other epistles are commonly reported to be his; but he is chiefly known by the signs and miracles which when a Bishop he effected with the great glory of the churches."* To this last circumstance Jerome obviously refers his eminence; and therefore seems to pass the more lightly over his smaller compositions. Indeed, as the expression aliæ epistolæ, "other epistles," implies that the Paraphrase just before named was one work of the same class, it is not

Hieron. De. Vir. Illust., c. lxv.

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