paid by the Father is in strict accordance with St. Paul's own language elsewhere (Rom. v. 8; viii. 32). It finds repeated expression in the Apostolic Constitutions in language evidently founded on this passage (ii. 57. 13; 61. 4; vii. 26. 1; viii. [11. 2.] 12. 18; 41. 4)." On the supposition that so is the true reading, the passage has been understood in a similar manner not merely by Socinian interpreters, as Wolzogen and Enjedinus, but by Erasmus (in his Paraphrase), Pellican,* Limborch (though he prefers the reading zupiov), Milton (De Doctrina Christiana, Pars I. c. v. p. 86, or Eng. trans. p. 148 f.), Lenfant and Beausobre as an alternative interpretation (Le Nouveau Test., note in loc.), Doederlein (Inst. Theol. Christ. ed. 6ta, 1797, § 105, Obs. 4, p. 387), Van der Palm (note in his Dutch translation), Granville Penn (The Book of the New Covenant, London, 1836, and Annotations, 1837, p. 315), and Mr. Darby (Trans. of the N. T., 2d ed. [1872]). Dr. Hort however is disposed to conjecture that rior dropped out after TOYIJIO "at some very early transcription, affecting all existing documents." Granville Penn had before made the same suggestion. It is obvious that no argument in support of any particular construction of Rom. ix. 5 can be prudently drawn from such a passage as this.

A few other passages in which some scholars still suppose that the name God is given to Christ by Paul have been examined in the paper on Titus ii. 13; see above, notes to pp. 3, 10, also p. 44.

Let us now look at the passages in which Paul has used the most exalted language respecting the person and dignity of Christ, and ask ourselves how far they afford a presumption that he might here describe him as "God blessed for ever."

The passage in this Epistle most similar to the present is ch. i. ver. 3, 4, where Christ is said to be "born of the seed of David as to the flesh," but "declared to be the Son of God with power as to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead," or more exactly, "by the resurrection of the dead." Here the antithesis to zarà cápra is supplied. It is not, however, κατὰ τὴν θεότητα, οι κατὰ τὴν θείαν φύσιν, but κατὰ πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, “as to his holy spirit, his higher spiritual nature, distinguished especially by the characteristic of holiness. There are many nice and difficult questions connected with this passage, which need not be here discussed; I will only say that I see no ground for finding in it a presumption that the Apostle would desig

*Erga congregationem dei quae vobis oscitanter curanda non est, ut quam deus adeò charam habuit, ut unigeniti sui sanguine eam paraverit." Comm. in loc., Tiguri, 1537, fol.

nate Christ as "God blessed for ever." Some, however, suppose that the title "Son of God" is essentially equivalent to @ss, and that the resurrection of Christ as an act of his own divine power is adduced here as a proof of his deity. I do not find the first supposition supported by the use of the term in the Old Testament or in the New (see John x. 36), and as to the second, it may be enough to say that it contradicts the uniform representation of the Apostle Paul on the subject, who everywhere refers his resurrection to the power of "God, the Father"; see Gal. i. 1; Eph. i. 19, 20; Rom. iv. 24; vi. 4; viii. 11; x. 9; 1 Cor. vi. 14; xv. 15; 2 Cor. iv. 14; xiii. 4; 1 Thes. i. 10; Acts xiii. 30-37; xvii. 31.

Another striking passage is Phil. ii. 6-11, where the Apostle says that Christ, "existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God* a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” Without entering into any detailed discussion of this passage, it may be enough to remark that being in the form of God, as Paul uses the expression here, is a very different thing from being God; that the pope cannot denote the nature or essence of Christ, because it is something of which he is represented as emptying or divesting himself. The same is true of the rò siva: loa 0, "the being on an equality with God," or "like God," which is spoken of as something which he was not eager to seize, according to one way of understanding áprayuós, or not eager to retain, according to another interpretation. † The Apostle goes on to say that on account of this self-abnegation and his obedience even unto death "GOD highly exalted him and gave him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow and that every

tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father." I cannot think that this passage, distinguishing Christ as it does so clearly from God, and representing his present exaltation as a reward bestowed upon him by God, renders it at all likely that Paul would call him "God blessed for ever."

We find a still more remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Colossians, i. 15-20, where it is affirmed concerning the Son that "he

*Or, as the Rev. Dr. B. H. Kennedy, Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge, translates it, the being like God"; compare Whitby's note on the use of loa. See Kennedy's Occasional Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, London, 1877, p. 62, or Ely Lectures (1882), p. 17 f.

+See Grimm's Lexicon Novi Testamenti, ed. 2 da (1879), s. v. popei, for one view; for another, Weiss's Biblische Theol. des N. T., § 103 c, p. 432 ff., 3te Aufl. (1880).

is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him were all things created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist [or hold together]. And he is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence [more literally, "become first"]. For it was the good pleasure [of the Father] that in him should all the fulness dwell; and through him to reconcile all things unto himself." In this passage, and in Col. ii. 9, 10, where the Apostle says of Christ "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him are ye made full, who is the head of all principality and power," we find, I believe, the strongest language which Paul has anywhere used concerning Christ's position in the universe, and his relation to the Church. I waive all question of the genuineness of the Epistle. Does then the language here used render it probable that Paul would, on occasion, designate Christ as "over all, God blessed for ever"?

Here certainly, if anywhere, we might expect that he would call him God; but he has not only not done so, but has carefully distinguished him from the being for whom he seems to reserve that name. He does not call him God, but "the image of the invisible God,” (comp. 2 Cor. iv. 4, and 1 Cor. xi. 7). His agency in the work of creation is also restricted and made secondary by the use of the prepositions and dd, clearly indicating that the conception in the mind of the Apostle is the same which appears in the Epistle to the Hebrews, i. 3; that he is not the primary source of the power exerted in creation, but the being "through whom GOD made the worlds," ôt ou troiŋger Tobs al@vas; comp. also 1 Cor. viii. 6, Eph. iii. 9 (though here ôtà 'I05 Xparos is not genuine), and the well-known language of Philo concerning the Logos.* Neither Paul nor any

* Philo calls the Logos the "Son of God," "the eldest son," "the first-begotten," and his representation of his agency in creation is very similar to that which Paul here attributes to "the Son of God's love (ver. 13). He describes the Logos as "the image of God, through whom the whole world was framed,” εἰκὼν θεοῦ, δι' οὗ κ. τ. λ. (De Monarch. ii. 5, Opp. ii. 225 ed. Mangey); "the instrument, through which [or whom] the world was built," Eppavos de' ob z. 7. h. (De Cherub. c. 35, Opp. i. 162, where note Philo's distinction between тò vợ'où, tù è vỏ, tò ot' ob, and rò dt' ); "the shadow of God, using whom as an instrument he made the world" (Legg. Alleg. iii. 31, Opp. i. 106). In two or three places he exceptionally applies the term sós to the Logos, professedly using it in a lower sense (v zazazpijøet), and making a distinction between Ocó, without the article, a divine being," and & 0ɛós, "the

"

other New Testament writer uses the preposition óró, "by," in speaking of the agency of the Son or Logos in creation. The designation "firstborn of all creation" seems also a very strange one to be applied to Christ conceived of as God. Some of the most orthodox Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, as Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Augustine, were so perplexed by it that they understood the Apostle to be speaking here of the new, spiritual creation;* and the passage has been explained as relating to this by some eminent modern interpreters, as Grotius, Wetstein, Ernesti, Noesselt, Heinrichs, Schleiermacher, Baumgarten-Crusius, Norton, though, I believe, erroneously. But I shall not discuss here the meaning of zpwrózozoz ráoys κτίσεως. I would only call attention to the way in which the Apostle speaks of the good pleasure of God, the Father, as the source of Christ's fulness of gifts and powers. "For it was the good pleasure [of God] that in him should all the fulness dwell" (ver. 19).† This declaration explains also Col. ii. 9; compare Eph. iii. 19; iv. 13; John i. 16. See also John xiv. 10; iii. 34 (?).

It thus appears, I think, first, that there is no satisfactory evidence that Paul has elsewhere called Christ God; and secondly, that in the passages in which he speaks of his dignity and power in the most exalted language, he not only seems studiously to avoid giving him this appellation, but represents him as deriving his dignity and power from the being to whom, in distinction from Christ, he everywhere gives that name,-the "one God, the Father."

Divine Being." (See De Somn. i. 38, Opp. i. 655, and comp. Legg. Alleg. iii. 73. Opp. i. 128, 1. 43.) In a fragment preserved by Eusebius (Praep. Evang. vii. 13, or Philonis Opp. ii. 625) he names the Logos & deútepoz 065, "the second [or inferior] God," distinguished from "the Most High and Father of the universe," "the God who is before [or above, ] the Logos." So he applies the term to Moses (comp. Exod. vii. 1,) and says that it may be used of one who procures good (-ò àɣalòs) for others," and is wise." De Mut. Nom. c. 22, Opp. i. 597, 598; see also De Mos. i. 28, Opp. ii. 106 [misprinted 108], where Moses is called ὅλου τοῦ ἔθνους θεὸς καὶ βασιλεύς; Quod det. pot. insid. c. 44, Opp. i. 222; De Migr. Abr. c. 15, Opp. i. 449; Legg. Alleg. i. 13, Opp. i. 151; Quod omn. prob. liber, c. 7, Opp. ii. 452; De Decem. Orac. c. 23, Opp. ii. 201. But though he speaks of the Logos in language as exalted as Paul uses concerning the Son, he would never have dreamed of calling him ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὺς εὐλόγητος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.

*See Lightfoot, St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, p. 214 ff.

το θεόσ (οι ο πατήρ) must be supplied as the subject of ευδόκησεν; comp. ver. 20, and Lightfoot's note. So Meyer, De Wette, Alford, Eadie, and the great majority of expositors.

We have considered the strongest passages which have been adduced to justify the supposition that Paul might apply this title to Christ. I have already intimated that they do not seem to me to authorize this supposition. But admitting, for the sake of argument, that we must infer from these and other passages that he really held the doctrine of the consubstantiality and co-eternity of the Son with the Father, and that on this account he would have been justified in calling him God, this does not remove the great improbability that he has so designated him, incidentally, in Rom. ix. 5, in opposition to a usage of the term which pervades all his writings. The question still forces itself upon us, What was the ground of this usage? Why has he elsewhere avoided giving him this title? In answering this question here, wishing to avoid as far as possible all dogmatic discussion, and to confine myself to exegetical considerations, I shall not transgress the limits of recognized orthodoxy. The doctrine of the subordination of the Son to the Father, in his divine as well as his human nature, has been held by a very large number, and if I mistake not, by a majority, of professed believers in the deity of Christ. The fourth and last Division or "Section of Bishop Bull's famous Defensio Fidei Nicaenae is entitled De Subordinatione Filii ad Patrem, ut ad sui originem ac principium. He maintains and proves that the Fathers who lived before and many, at least, of those who lived after the Council of Nice unequivocally acknowledged this subordination (though the post-Nicene writers were more guarded in their language), and that on this account, while calling the Son θεός, and θεὸς ἐκ Θεοῦ, as begotten from the substance of the Father, they were accustomed to reserve such titles as ó ós used absolutely, εἷς θεός, and ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων οἱ ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεός for the Father alone. The Father alone was "uncaused," "unoriginated," "the fountain of deity" to the Son and Spirit. * Now the word θεός

was often used by the Fathers of the second and later centuries not as a proper, but as a common name; angels, and even Christians, especially in their beatified state, might be and were called coí. It had also a metaphorical and rhetorical use, quite foreign from the style of the New Testament. All this made it easy and natural,

The ancient doctors of the church," as Bishop Pearson remarks, "have not stuck to call the Father the origin, the cause, the author, the root, the fountain, and the head of the Son,' or the whole Divinity." Exposition of the Creed, Chap. I. p. 38, Nichols's ed.

+For proof and illustration of what has been stated, see Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., vol. iii. Addit. Note D, "On the Use of the Words 0óg and deus"; Statement of Reasons, 12th ed., pp. 113, 114 note, 120 note, 300 f., 314, 319 f., 365 note, 468; Sandius, Interpretationes