Luke i. 35. to that sense: which I the rather note, because so their asserting Christ's birth of a virgin, and his preexisting as Spirit of God, and God, amounted to the same thing. For the reason given by St. Luke, (or rather by the angel in St. Luke,) why Mary should conceive, though she knew not a man, is, that the Holy Spirit should come upon her, that the power of the Highest [dúvaus ú↓íotov] should overshadow her: so that, after this, to deny the birth of a virgin, amounted, in construction, to the same with denying any such coming of an Holy Spirit upon Mary, any divine preexistence of Christ. And hence, I conceive, it is, that we so often find in the ancient Fathers those two doctrines so linked together, or so intermingled with each other, that they appear, in a manner, but as the same thing twice told, or the same doctrine diversely expressed. The Ebionites denied the descent of the Logos upon Mary: they rejected the divine part in Christ, admitting only the human. This is what Irenæus calls rejecting the heavenly wine, (alluding to their celebrating the Eucharist in water only, without winey,) not receiving

Προελθὼν δὲ ὁ Λόγος, δημιουργίας αἴτιος, ἔπειτα καὶ ἑαυτὸν γεννᾷ, ὅταν ὁ Λόγος eng yirnrai. Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. v. p. 654.

Qua autem Spiritus Dei et virtus Altissimi, non potest infra angelos haberi. Tertul. de Carn. Christi, cap. xiv.

Ecce, inquiunt, ab angelo prædicatum est, propterea quod nascetur Sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei: caro itaque nata est, caro utique erit Filius Dei. Immo, de Spiritu Dei dictum est. Certe enim de Spiritu Sancto Virgo concepit; et quod concepit, id peperit: id ergo nasci habebat quod erat conceptum et pariendum; id est Spiritus, cujus et vocabitur nomen Emmanuel, quod est interpretatum nobiscum Deus. Caro autem Deus non est, ut de illa dictum sit quod nascetur Sanctum, vocabitur Filius Dei, sed ille qui in ea natus est, Deus.- -Quis Deus in eo natus? Sermo et Spiritus. Tertul. contr. Prax. cap. xxvii.

Verbum Dei incarnatum per Spiritum illum de quo angelus refert, Spiritus veniet in te, &c.—ut principalitas nominis istius, Filius Dei, in Spiritu sit Domini qui descendit et venit. Novat. cap. xx.

Hic in Virgine labitur, carne Spiritus Sanctus induitur. Cyprian. de Idolor. Vanit. sic cod. German. et 4. MSS. Pamel.

Descendens itaque de cœlo Sanctus ille Spiritus, sanctam Virginem, cujus utero se insinuaret, elegit. Lactant. lib. iv. cap. 12.

Epiphan. Hær. xxx. 16.

God into their mixture, but contenting themselves with the earthly Adam, who was cast out of Paradise; intimating that the Ebionites should as certainly be excluded heaven. The thought which Irenæus goes upon may be illustrated from a passage in Hippolytus, which, speaking of Christ, runs thus: "As it was prophesied beforehand, "so he manifested himself of the Virgin and Holy Spirit ; "made a new man, (a second Adam,) having an heavenly "nature of the Father, as he is the Logos, and having an

earthly one, as of the old Adam, incarnate of a virgin. "He came into the world, and manifested himself as "God"." But to return to Irenæus, it is very plain that he looked upon the reconciliation of God and man as depending entirely upon the Mediator's being both in one a: and in how strict a sense he understood Christ to be God is well known to as many as know any thing of Irenæus. But if the English reader desires farther satisfaction on that head, he may have it abundantly from Mr. Alexander's Essay on Irenæusb, a very judicious and faithful performance, a finished piece in its kind. I heartily wish that that learned gentleman had leisure, as he has abilities, to draw out more of the Fathers in the same way.

A. D. 206. Tertullian reckons the Ebionites among the antichrists, for denying Jesus to be Son of God, that is, for impugning the Divinity of Christ: for that Tertullian understood the phrase of Son of God as applied to Christ, to mean the same as God of Godd, is plain from all his

* Καθ' ὃν οὖν τρόπον ἐκηρύχθη, κατὰ τοῦτον καὶ παρὼν ἐφανέρωσεν ἑαυτὸν ἐκ παρθένου καὶ ἁγίου πνεύματος, καινὸς ἄνθρωπος γενόμενος· τὸ μὲν οὐράνιον ἔχων τὸ πατρῷον ὡς Λόγος, τὸ δὲ ἐπίγειον, ὡς ἐκ παλαιοῦ ̓Αδὰμ διὰ παρθένου σαρκούμενος. οὗτος ☛gosaDwv sis xóopov Oròs iparigádn. x. v. λ. Hippolyt. contr. Noët. cap. xvii. p. 18, 19. Conf. Tertullian. de Carn. Christi, cap. xvii.

■ Vid. Iræn. lib. iii. cap. 18, alias 20.

b Printed for John Clarke and Richard Hett, A.D. 1727.

At in Epistola eos maxime antichristos vocat qui Christum negarent in carne venisse, et qui non putarent Jesum esse Filium Dei: illud Marcion, hoc Hebion vindicavit. Tertul. Præscript. cap. xxxiii.

d Hunc ex Deo prolatum dicimus, et prolatione generatum, et idcirco Filium Dei et Deum dictum, ex unitate substantiæ.Ita de Spiritu Spiritus, et de Deo Deus, ut lumen d lumine accensum. -Quod de Deo profectum est,

219 writings. And what he must think of the dangerous state the Ebionites were in, by their heresy in that article, may appear sufficiently from a maxim he lays down, that none have life who believe not in the Son, and none believe in the Son, who admit not that he is a Sone in such a sense as he had mentioned.

He again censures the Ebionites, as making Christ a mere man, and denying that he is the Son of Godf. Where it is observable he passes over in silence their denying his birth of a virgin, or condemns both their positions in one, as resolving into the same error. However, the stress of his censure lies upon their impugning Christ's divine Sonship, that is, his real and proper Divinity: for such was Tertullian's sense of Son of God, as I before intimated.

In another place, he speaks of the Ebionites as denying Christ's birth of a virgin, but makes that amount to denying his being Son of Gods, in his high sense of that phrase. And the reason why the denial of the one implied the denial of the other (in his way of arguing, common to other Fathers) seems to have been this; that it would have been utterly unworthy h of the Son of God to have

Deus est, et Dei Filius, et unus ambo. Ita de Spiritu Spiritus, et de Deo Deus, &c. Tertul. Apol. cap. xxi.

e

Qui Filium non habet, nec vitam habet: non habet autem Filium, qui eum alium quam Filium credit. Contr. Prax. cap. xxx.

Qua autem Spiritus Dei, et virtus Altissimi, non potest infra angelos haberi, Deus scilicet et Dei Filius. Quanto ergo dum hominem gestat minor angelis factus est tanto non, dum angelum gestat. Poterit hæc opinio Hebioni convenire, qui nudum hominem et tantum ex semine David, id est non et Dei Filium constituit Jesum. Tertullian. de Carn. Christi, cap. xiv.

Non competebat ex semine humano Dei Filium nasci, ne si totus esset Filius hominis, non esset et Dei Filius, nihilque haberet amplius Solomone, et amplius Jona, et de Hebionis opinione credendus erat. Ergo jam Dei Filius ex Patris Dei semine, id est Spiritu; vacabat enim viri semen apud habentem Dei semen. Tertullian. de Carn. Christi, cap. xviii.

Ante omnia autem commendanda erit ratio quæ præfuit, ut Dei Filius de Virgine nasceretur. Nove nasci debebat nova nativitatis dedicator.— Concepit igitur Virgo et peperit Emanuelem, nobiscum Deum. Hæc est nativitas nova dum homo nascitur in Deo, in quo homine Deus natus est; carne

taken man upon him, except it were by a virgin: therefore the denial of the mother's virginity amounted to a denial of God's being born of her; it was making it absurd. From whence we see a further reason of what I before hinted, that the two false positions of the Ebionites were considered as near allied, and were condemned in one, as hanging both together, and perhaps one invented for the sake of the other. The denying the miraculous conception was, by inference and implication, denying Christ's Divinity, as the affirming of the one was conceived to amount to affirming the other. But the later Ebionites, (as we shall see) having a mind to reform their scheme, contrived at length to admit the miraculous conception, and still rejected our Lord's Divinity: which was retaining the main substance of their heresy, but under a better appearance than before. We shall observe presently what the Church of Christ thought of them after that new reform.

A. D. 249. Origen is the first that takes notice of the Ebionites as divided into two sortsk, one denying, as before, Christ's birth of a virgin, the other admitting it. But still he reckons both among the pretended Christians 1, and introduces them among other heretics m. But whether or no he charged them with heresy on account of their denying our Lord's Divinity would not certainly appear, if he had not expressed himself more fully in some other of his writings. In his Comment upon St. Matthew, he takes the like notice of the two sorts of Ebionites, charging

antiqui seminis suscepta sine semine antiquo, ut illam novo semine, id est spiritaliter [fort. spiritali] reformaret, exclusis antiquitatis sordibus, expiatam. Tertul. de Carn. Christi, cap. xvii.

i See what the learned Vitringa says of Cerinthus's denying the miraculous conception, Observat. Sacr. lib. v. cap. 12. sect. 6. p. 145, 146. edit. ult.

* Οὗτοι δὲ εἰσὶν οἱ διττοὶ Ἐβιοναῖοι, ἤτοι ἐκ παρθένου ὁμολογοῦντες ὁμοίως ἡμῖν τὸν ̓Ιησοῦν, ἢ οὐχ οὕτω γεγεννήσθαι, ἀλλ' ὡς τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀνθρώπους. Orig. contr. Cels. p. 272. Conf. Comment. in Matth. p. 427.

1 Orig. ibid. p. 272.

m Ibid. 271, 272, 274.

both as rejecting Christ's Divinity", and as poor in faith towards Christ Jesus; alluding to their name, which signifies the same as poor. But Pamphilus, in his Apology for Origen, produces some passages of his, out of his Comments on the Epistle to Titus, where he condemns the Ebionites more expressly as heretics, for their denying Christ's DivinityP. As to any doubt which may be made about Pamphilus's Apology, (appearing only in Ruffinus's version,) and the credit due to it, I refer the reader to Bishop Bull, who has largely discussed that question, and has sufficiently maintained the authority of that version 9. As to Origen's own orthodoxy in the article of Christ's Divinity, it has been abundantly vindicated, and cleared from all reasonable exception '.

A. D. 290. I shall add but one writer more, Victorinus Petavionensis, before referred to as saying, that St. John wrote his Gospel against Ebion, among others who were of the school of Satans. It is very plain, by his manner of expression, that he looked upon Ebion as a very ill man and an heretic, being of Satan's school, and condemned by the Apostle himself. And considering how particular St. John is, in setting forth the Divinity of Christ, we cannot doubt but Victorinus's censure of Ebion respects that article.

" Οὐ μὴν καὶ μετὰ τῆς περὶ αὐτοῦ θεολογίας. Comm. in Matth. p. 427. • Τῷ Ἐβιοναίῳ πτωχεύοντι περὶ τὴν εἰς Ἰησοῦν πίσιν. Ibid. 428.

P Quid vero sit hæreticus homo, pro viribus nostris, secundum quod sentire possumus, describamus. Omnis qui se Christo credere profitetur et tamen alium Deum Legis et Prophetarum, alium Evangeliorum Deum dicit, &c.hujusmodi homines hæreticos designamus -unum idemque credendum est de eo qui de Domino nostro Jesu Christo falsi aliquid senserit: sive secundum eos qui dicunt eum ex Joseph et Maria natum, sicut sunt Hebionitæ et Valentiniani; sive secundum eos qui primogenitum eum negant et totius creaturæ Deum, et Verbum, et Sapientiam quæ est initium viarum Dei, antequam aliquid fieret ante sæcula fundatam, atque ante omnes colles generatam, sed hominem solum eum credentes. Pamphil. Apolog. p. 226. edit. Bened. Conf. Comment. in Joann. p. 397.

4 Bull Def. F. N. sect. ii. cap. 9. p. 114, &c.

Bishop Bull, sect. ii. cap. 9. Compare my Second Defence, vol. iii. Qu. xii. p. 322, &c.

See above, p. 178.