come acquainted with, he instructed the assembled church at Portus upon the points of doctrine regarding which there was most doubt and discussion at the time. How useful such addresses must have been to those who had not ability to solve difficult questions or examine the truth for themselves, nor opportunity to read the written works of other men, will be learned from the specimen given above of the homiletic style of Hippolytus. Its distinctness of statement, its confident appeal to Scripture, and its eloquence, shew us very plainly how so short a fragment has come to be so long preserved. If his homilies were often like this one, we do not wonder that Origen should sometimes have been seen among the congregation, nor that the Greek teachers in Egypt should have commended Christians trading to the Tiber to seek the acquaintance and instructions of this widely read and judicious presbyter. It was first published in the edition of Hippolytus by Fabricius, who received from Montfaucon a copy of the Vatican MS. The Latin version of Turrianus had been previously published under the title, "Homilia de Deo trino et uno, et de mysterio Incarnationis contra hæres in Noeti." In the Vatican MS. the title runs, "A Homily of Hippolytus against the heresy of one Noetus." Noetus had affirmed that the Father himself was Christ, and that the Father himself was born, suffered, and died; and Hippolytus, after stating the historical circumstances under which Noetus propounded his heresy, and the faithful exercise of discipline which ended in the casting out of the heretic from the church, proceeds with his refutation as follows:

"And this is what Christ himself said when in the gospel he confessed both his Father and his God, saying, 'I go away to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.' If, therefore, Noetus dares to say that Christ himself is the Father, let him tell us to what Father Christ was going away according to this saying in the gospel. But if he thinks that we should abandon the gospel and listen to his folly, he labours in vain, for we ought to obey God rather than men.'

"And if he should say, 'Christ himself said, I and the Father are one,' let him attend to the expression, and consider that he did not say, 'I and the Father am one,' but are' one. For are' is not used of one, but he uses it to point out two persons and one power. He explained this himself when he said to the Father concerning his disciples, The glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that thou hast sent me.' What have the Noetians to say to these things? Are all one body according to substance? Or do we become one by the power and disposition of like-mindedness? In the very same manner the Son (a) who was sent pro

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claimed to them that were in the world, and knew him not, that he was in the Father by power and disposition. For the Son is the mind of the Father. Those who have the mind of the Father accordingly receive Christ; but they who have not the mind of the Father reject him. And if they cite the case of Philip, who said, 'Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us,' and to whom our Lord answered saying, Have I been so long time with you, Philip, and yet hast thou not known me? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?'-if they cite this as proof that Christ calls himself the Father, let them know that they herein adduce the most direct contradiction to their own dogma, and convict themselves by the very scripture they bring forward; for when Christ, by very deed and word, had declared himself the Son, they yet did not know him, and were unable to comprehend or perceive his power, and Philip, not understanding how far it was possible to see, asked that he might look upon the Father, and so our Lord answered him,' He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;' that is, if thou hast seen me, through me you may know the Father; for the Father is brought within easy reach of our knowledge through the image which bears his likeness; but if thou hast not known the image, that is, the Son, how think you to see the Father? And that these things are as we have stated them, the context evinces, shewing that the Son, being set forth, was sent from the Father and went to the Father.

"And many other passages, or rather, all others, bear witness to this truth. So evidently, too, is their testimony borne, that a man is forced, even though unwilling, to confess God the Father Almighty and Christ Jesus the Son of God, God become man, to whom the Father hath made subject all things save himself and the Holy Spirit, and that these are truly three. And if he desires further to know how the unity of God is proved, let him know that his power is one, and that so far as concerns his power God is one; but so far as concerns the incarnation, there is a threefold exhibition, (imídiği), as shall shortly be proved when we come to the positive side of our argument, and deliver the true doctrine. The things which we have said are the articles of our common faith, for there is one God in whom we must believe, but unbegotten, impassible, immortal, doing all that he willeth, as he willeth, when he willeth. What, then, will this nothing-knowing Noetus dare to reply to these things! [Nontos vo]. Since, therefore, Noetus is thus speedily confuted, let us pass to the demonstration of the truth; that, as he has endeavoured to disseminate his error, we may establish the truth against which all these so great heresies have arisen, and yet say nothing to the purpose.

"One God there is, my brethren, and the knowledge of him we receive from the holy Scriptures, and from no other source. For, just as any person wishing to be skilled in the wisdom of this world will find no other means of attaining his desire than by studying the writings of philosophers, so as many of us as resolve to practise godliness must draw our information from no other source than from

the oracles of God. Whatever, therefore, the holy Scriptures declare, let us observe; and whatever they teach, let us understand; and as the Father wills that we believe in him, let us believe; and as he wills that the Son be honoured, let us honour him; and as he wills that the Holy Spirit be given, let us receive him,—not after our own understanding, nor after our private prejudices and preconceptions, nor using violence towards the things given us of God, but as he himself intended to teach by the holy Scriptures, so let us mark and understand."

These instructions were suddenly interrupted in the first year of Maximin the Thracian (A.D. 235). Worthy, as his contemporaries might have said, of a more glorious death than mere decay or disease could inflict, Hippolytus won the twofold honour of a long and useful life, and a martyr's death. When he had already spent his life in the service of his master, he was called upon to give up for his sake the remnant he yet held. Prudentius, in the verses he has written in celebration of this martyr, assures us that the heathen magistrate found in the name of Hippolytus a sufficient warrant for the manner of his death, and ordered him to be torn asunder by horses, that he might in his death resemble the chaste but slandered son of Theseus, whose name he had borne through life. This we may happily be spared believing. The numerous calls upon feeling which fact makes, oblige us to adopt a strict economy of emotion, and forbid that we should waste, upon what may be only fiction, the sentiments of pity or regret which are so abundantly demanded by actual events. In the case of Hippolytus, there is little need to resort to fiction, for we read that he was banished "in insulam nocivam Sardiniam ;" and it is not likely that an old man, spent with anxiety, study, and manifold labours, would long resist the influence of the unwholesome climate, unusual habits of life, and harsh treatment, or would long disappoint the intention of his persecutors. "Feminis lugere honestum est, viris meminisse."

Rather than attempt to detail the theological opinions of Hippolytus, we would recall one or two of the characteristics of the theology of his time. We appreciate the service rendered by the early theologians, and are put in a position from which we see the whole bulk and symmetry of their intellects only when we stand so as to see at the same time the work they had to perform. The men whom, for the prospects of Christianity, it was chiefly important to win over, were those of active and disciplined mind, who were dissatisfied with the philosophical systems in vogue, but who could not, and would not, divest themselves of the mental habits, nor discard all the modes of thought to which, throughout their thinking lives, these systems had accustomed them. The philosophical

inquiries of these men were to be met by philosophical explanations. An exposition of the faith was called for, which should appeal to the learned through all that was good in their previous learning. A method and range of instruction was required which should at once defend Christianity from the attacks of philosophy, and should invite the attention of all who were thirsting for the truth. To present Christianity in such a form was a very difficult task. It required that the Christian theologian should have thorough sympathy with the intellectual culture of Greece, and yet should at the same time be wholly obedient to the teacher of Nazareth. When a modern reader finds so much philosophical terminology mingling with the words of Scripture in ancient expositions of the faith, he is to remember that, in their day, these forms of expression were intelligible and pregnant, and that throughout the educated world they were familiarly used. There were certain ideas current which, however incomprehensible or absurd to us, were not then the guilt of individuals, but the common inheritance of all thinking persons. These ideas were part of the property of every mind, and with them, whatever the mind received, had to be harmonized. Now, this was so different a juncture from that which Christian sentiments and ideas have to effect when they enter the modern mind, that we are very apt to underrate the efforts of the early theologians, not understanding the union which they had to bring about. An educated and speculative heathenism is a very different thing to deal with from that state of mind to which modern theology has to introduce itself; and few, if any, periods of the church's history have required from her leaders a more generous breadth of sympathy, or a more genuine culture, or a more judicious treatment of opinions.

Moreover, in judging of the value of early documents, we are to bear in mind that the truth delivered in Scripture was not discovered all at once, and that what is to us obvious and trite, was only slowly developed by the labour and repeated mistakes of the fathers of Christian theology. Instead, therefore, of summarily condemning as heretical every writer who does not distinctly and fully declare the truth according to our light, we are to inquire whether he spoke in denial of, or only in ignorance of, the whole truth. We are not to blame him for having come so short a distance on the road, but to consider whether his face be turned in the right direction, and what willingness and ability he manifests for prosecuting the journey. And we will also learn to distinguish between "the first principles of the oracles of God," and "the things hard to be understood." Of the latter, there is one which falls under the notice of Hippolytus in this homily; it is the doctrine of

the eternal generation of the Son. The difficulties connected with this doctrine are known best by those who have longest examined it, and no one who does not expect a miraculous unanimity of consent among the fathers is astonished to discover that the church lived till the time of Origen without possessing any exact statement of this doctrine, while it abounded in statements quite inconsistent with it. The truth is, that it was the difficulties and obvious errors of Hippolytus himself, that drew Origen to consider the matter, and to deliver that statement of the truth which has ever since been generally received as the orthodox doctrine. Justin Martyr, and perhaps Theophilus of Antioch (though even such authorities as Lumper and Dorner disagree as to his opinion), did not grasp the truth on this point, though they avoided the common error. They did not say with Tatian and Athenagoras, that the Word in the beginning of the world becomes the first-born work of the Father, but much further were they from saying with Bishop Pearson, "The essence which God always had without begining, without beginning he did communicate, being always Father as always God." They did not with Tertullian maintain that there was a time when there was no Son ("Fuit autem tempus, cum ei filius non fuit."-Adv. Hermog. 3); but neither do they with Dionysius of Alexandria distinctly aver that there never was (a time) when God was not a Father." Hippolytus views the generation of the Son as dependent on the will of the Father, and thinks of his production as merely for purposes of creation. On this point Hippolytus thus expresses himself:

"But as the author, and fellow-counsellor, and maker of all that is made, he begot the Word; which Word, retained within himself and unseen by the created world, he makes visible; uttering the first ereating word (pwvý),* and begetting light of light, he sent forth the Lord to the creation; the Lord, his own reason (vous), formerly visible to himself alone, and unseen by that which was made, he now makes visible, that through his appearing the world might see him and be saved.

"And in this way beside himself there existed another. Anc

In this chapter, and specially in this expression, Hippolytus evinces his belief that the prolation of the Son was contingent upon the Father's purpose of creation. The similarity of this doctrine to that of Tertullian may be seen from many passages in the tract Adv. Praxean, e.g., in c. 6, he says:-" Ut primum deus voluit ea, quae cum Sophiae ratione et sermone disposuerat intra se, in substantias et species suas edere, ipsum primum protulit sermonem habentem in se individuas suas rationem et Sophiam, ut per ipsum fierent universa, per quem erant cogitata atque disposita, imo et facta jam, quantum in dei sensu."

† όντως παρίστατο αυτῷ ἔτερος. This expression certainly forces us to conclude that Hippolytus did not consider the Son to exist as a person until