mention of s in scripture of any other generation of the son of God. Iohn tells us, In the beginning was the Word, but he doth not tell us that he was begotten in or before the beginning. This opinion came from the Theology of the heathens, & whether it isbe true or false we cannot know without an express revelation. nor is it material nor is it material to the Christian religion.

According to the opinion of the Christians mentioned & rejected by Iustin, the son or Word of God was a the natural essential inherent power of the father the internal λόγος or λόγος ἐνδιάθετος of the father from all eternity, & was emitted from him outwardly (as light from the sun) before the beginning of the world in order to create it & may be retracted back into him. And this metaphysical theology tho it came from the heathens & was was the came from the heathens & became the theology of the Heathens & Cataphrygians & other hereticks & amounted to a deniall of the father & the son (for the inherent powers vertues & attributes of the father are not his children:) yet it spread very early in the Churches so as to infect several Christians of Go good note before the end of the second century, especially such as were first educated in the learning of the heathens before they became Christians & by their learning made themselves eminent.

For Athenagoras in his Apology, after he had been describing the opinion of Plato concerning the Deity, subjoins. Quod si non impia est hæc Platonis de uno universitatis ingenito Deo sententia: .......... ut etiam cadat sub aspectum.

The Church of Rome in the days of Pope Victor began to place religion in ceremonies & to err in the faith & grow uncharitable towards other Churches. For this Pope excommunicated the Churches of Asia for keeping Easter upon the 14th day of the first month of the Lunisolar year (a thing in its own nature indifferent) & wrote communicatory letters to the Montanists in Asia & Phrygia & then turned Patripassian & recalling those letters by the perswasion of Praxeas, as Tertullian a Montanist in his book against Praxeas written about the year 198 or 200 thus mentions. Idem [Praxeas] tunc Episcopum Romanum agnoscentem jam prophetias Montani Priscæ et Maxamillæ et ex ea agnitione pacem ecclesijs Asiæ et Phrygiæ inferentem, falsa de ipsis prophetijs et ecclesijs adseverando, & præcessorum ejus actoritatesauctoritates defendendo, coegit et literas pacis revocare jam emissas et a proposito recipiendorum charismatum concessare. Ita duo negotia diaboli Praxeas Romæ procuravit, prophetiam expulit et Patrem crucifixit. All this Tertullian seems to have learnt when he was at Rome & by consequence before he turned Montanist. And therefor this bishop of Rome was Victor. For Tertullian turned Montanist before he wrote his book de Corona militis & wrote that book A.C. 201, after the death of the Pope who did these things. For he wants scarce have charged a living Pope in express words with doing the work of the devil & crucifying God almight the father almighty. The predecessors of Victor who had opposed the Montanists were Soter & Eleutherus. For Soter wrote against them at their first rise & Irenæus was sent to Rome by the Church of Lyons to confer with Eleutherus against them. And therefore Victor was the first bishop of Rome who turned Montanist. He seems is to be called I take him to be the Victorinus mentioned in the appendix to Tertullians book de Præscriptione hæreticorum, in these words. Sed post hos omnes etiam Praxeas quidam hæresim introduxit quam Victorinus corroberaviret curavit. And if I mistake not he He seems to have written letters of peace to the Montanists of Asia & Phrygia for strengthening himself against the true Churches of those parts whom he had newly excommunicated in order to subvert them. And henceforward there remained a perpetual misunderstanding between the Churches of Asia instructed by Iohn & represented in the Apocalyps by the seven Churches of & the Church of Rome instructed by Clemens & represented (after separation from the seven Churches) by the woman seated upon seven hills in the wilderness. Now while the bishop of Rome became first a Cataphrygian & then a Praxean or Patripassian, he was certainly of opinion that the Word of God was the the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος the internal inherent & essential power reason & wisdom of the father from all eternity & at length was emitted outwardly as a ray of light from the sun & as the first word which God spake when he began to exert his power for creating the world. For this was the common opinion of both those hereticks.

By these instances it is manifest that the metaphysical Theology of Orpheus Plato & other heathen Philosophers began to spread manifestly much manifestly in the churches before the end of the second century, & infected not only those who separated from her & became hereticks of note, but also many others who did not separate, & particularly that it insinuated it self into the Churches of Antioch & Rome & the scoolschool at Alexandria. And therefore we need not wonder if it still got grownd in the third century & prevailed in the fourth.

Antony the fa common father of the Moncks taught the people (as Athanasius tells us,)In vita Antonij. that the Son of God was ἀίδιος τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς οὐσίας λόγος καὶ σοφία, the Word & wisdome of the fathers substance & therefore eternal. And from Antony this doctrine came to his disciples the Moncks.

Athanasius was educated a monck under Antony pouring water upon his hands as Elisha did upon Elijah's, & imbibed the same doctrine. even in his youth For he taught, as you may see in many places of his works, that th λόγος he takes the λόγος for the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος without wchwhich the father would be ἄσοφος & ἄλογος & thence argues his eternity & represents that the λόγος arose from yethe father not as an empty voice vanid voice but with a substance as light from yethe Sun, a river from the fountain a tree from the root & so was consubstantial to him: wchwhich was the language of & doctrine of the Montanists (κατὰ Proclum) as you have heard above. And this doctrine Athanasius imbibed in his youth as may be gathered from his Orations contra Gentes & de incarnatione Verbi Dei wchwhich he wrote before the controversy wthwith Arius began. & continued in it ✝ ✝ till about the end of the reign of Constantius as appears by his book de synodis in wchwhich he saith: we know that the son is not only λόγος προφορικὸς καὶ ἐνδιάθετος τοῦ Θεοῦ the spoken or inherent word of God but also a living God the Word subsisting by himself.