In the beginning was the second person in the Trinity; and the second person was with the first; and the second person was possessed of divine attributes as such.
We might surely ask, without unreasonableness, why, when the society or personal affinity of the Son in the Godhead, is mentioned in the middle clause, the companionship of the Father only is noticed, and silence observed respecting the Holy Spirit; who at that moment could not possibly have been absent from the conceptions of any Athanasian writer. But independently of this, the awkwardness of the construction, the violence of the leading transition of meaning, render the interpretation altogether untenable. If it be true, never surely was there a form of speech worse devised for the conveyance of the intended ideas.
In order to give the passage its true force, there is no occasion to assign to the word God any but its usual signification; as the name of the One infinite Person or Being who created and rules the universe. But it is less easy to embrace and exhibit with any distinctness, the notion implied in the phrase Word or Logos. The ancient speculative schools, seeing that the Deity had existed from eternity, and therefore in a long solitude before the origin of creation, distinguished between his intrinsic nature,—deep, remote, primeval, unfathomable,[[192]]—and that portion of his mind which put itself forth, or expressed itself by works, so as to come into voluntary and intelligible relations to men.[[193]] This section of the Divine Mind, to which was attributable the authorship of the divine works, they called the Logos, or the Image of God; both terms denoting the expression or power which outwardly reveals internal qualities; the one taking its metaphor from the ear, through which we make known our sentiments by speech; the other from the eye, to which is addressed the natural language of feature and lineament. If I might venture on an illustration which may sound strangely to modern hearers, I should say that the Logos was conceived of in relation to God, much as with us Genius is, in relation to the soul of its possessor; to denote that peculiar combination of intellectual and moral attributes, which produces great, original, creative works,—works which let you into the spirit and affections, as well as the understanding, of the Author. Any one who can so possess himself with the speculative temper of Christian antiquity, as to use with reverence the phrase genius of God, would find it, I am persuaded, a useful English substitute (though I am well aware, not a perfect equivalent) for the word Logos. Dwelling within the blank immensity of God, was this illuminated region of Divine ideas; in which, as in the fancy and the studio of an artist, the formative conceptions, the original sketches and designs, the inventive projects of beauty and good, shaped and perfected themselves; and from which they issued forth, to imprint themselves upon matter and life, and pass into executed and visible realities. From the energy of this creative spirit, or blessed genius of God, two very different orders of results were conceived to flow:—the forms and symmetrical arrangements of the material universe, by which, as by the engraving of a seal, Deity stamped his perfections into vision: and the intuitions of pure reason and conscience in the human soul, by which, as by a heavenly tone or vibration, Deity thrilled himself into consciousness. And when I say Deity, I mean the Logos of Deity; for this alone, it was conceived, stood in any relation to us; the rest was an unexpressed and unfathomable Essence.
This portion of the Divine Infinitude was incessantly and vividly personified; so as to assume, even in the writings of the Jew and undoubted Monotheist Philo, the frequent aspect of a second God: though scarcely have you taken up this idea from one series of passages, before you are recalled and corrected by others, clearly showing that this is a false impression, too hastily derived from the intensity of the imagery and language. Indeed the distinction between a mere personification and a positive mythological personage is very faint. When a writer personifies an abstraction, for the moment he conceives of this object of thought as a person; and were this state of mind perpetuated, he would believe it to be a person. But his mental attitude changes; and in a less excited hour, that which had constructed and painted itself almost into a being, fades away again into an attribute. Hence the fluctuation of writers, at once imaginative and speculative, like Philo and some of the early Christian Fathers, between the logical and the mythical method of speaking of the properties of the Divine nature. And it may be remarked, that the Apostle John partook, though in a very slight degree, of the same tendency. He was fond of abstract words: calling our Saviour the way, rather than the guide; the truth, rather than the teacher; the light, rather than the illuminator; and so I conceive, in the commencement of his Gospel, the inspiration, rather than the inspired of God. And then, as if to remedy the indistinctness of this mode of representation, he resorts to personification: thus, at the dictation of his reverence, first reducing the living person to an abstraction; and afterwards, at the bidding of his imagination, recreating the abstraction into a person. The extent to which this personification may be carried, by an author who certainly had no notion but of One personal God, may be estimated from a few sentences, referring to this very conception of the Logos, from the Jewish Philo. The invisible and intellectual Logos, he says, is the image of God, by whom the world was fashioned; his first-born son, his vicegerent in the government of the world; the mediator between God and his creatures; the healer of ills; God’s divine Son, whose mother is wisdom. In another place, the Logos is the very same with the wisdom of God; the most ancient angel, the first-born of God; to the resemblance of whom every one, who would be a son of God, must fashion himself. He is even the “second God,” “To the Archangel, and most ancient Logos,” says this writer, “God granted this distinguished office, that he should stand on the confines of creation, and separate between it and its Creator. With the incorruptible being he is the suppliant for perishable mortality. He is the ambassador of the Supreme to the subject creation. He announces the will of the Ruler to his subjects. And he delights in the office, and boasts of it, saying; I had stood between you and the Lord as mediator; being neither unbegotten as God, nor begotten as you, but between the two extremes, and acting as hostage to both,”[[194]] All this sounds very mysterious; the important thing to bear in mind is, that the writer is certainly speaking not of any separate divine person, but of the impersonated attributes of One Sole Supreme.
St. John then, I conceive, does the very same; only he carefully warns us against thinking of his personification as otherwise than identical with the Supreme, by saying outright, that the Logos is God; and therefore that whatever he may say about the former, is really to be understood as spoken of the latter. The whole proem divides itself into two ideas: that from the Genius or Logos of God have proceeded two sets of divine works; the material world; and the soul and inspiration of heaven shed upon the world through Christ. His object, I believe, is to link together these two effects as successive and analogous results, physical in one case, spiritual in the other, of the same divine and holy energy. Having warned us, as I have said, in the very first verse, that this energy is not really a person distinct from the Supreme, he abandons himself without reserve to the beautiful personification which follows; assuring us that thereby were all things made at first, and thereby were all men being enlightened now; that our very world, which felt that forming hand of old, had not discerned the blessed influence which again descended to regenerate it: ungrateful treatment! as of one who came unto his own, and his own received him not. Yet were there some of more perceptive conscience and better hearts; and they, be they Jew or Gentile, whose spirits sprung to the divine embrace, were permitted to become, by reflected similitude, the Sons of God.
Thus far, that is, to the end of the thirteenth verse, there is no mention of Jesus Christ as an individual; there is only the unembodied personification of the abstract energy of God in the original design, and the newer regeneration of the world. Nor should there be any difficulty in this separation of the Divine Spirit from its positive and personal results. Of the Creative Mind of God we can easily think, as not only prior to the act of creation, but still apart from the forms of matter; and so can we of the illuminating or regenerative Mind of God, as not only prior to its manifestation in Christ, but apart from its embodiment in his person. In the next verse, however, the heavenly personification is dropped upon the man Jesus; the mystic divine light is permitted to sink into the deeps of his humanity; it vanishes from separate sight: and there comes before us, and henceforth lives within our view throughout the Gospel, the Man of Sorrows, the Child of God, with the tears and infirmities of our mortal nature, and the moral perfection of the Divine. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.”[[195]]
(d.) The spirit of this exposition is directly applicable to another passage, adduced to prove the deity of Christ: “God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”[[196]] It is well known that in the most approved text, the word God does not exist, and the passage reads, “He who was manifest in the flesh,” &c. Were it permitted to indulge personal wishes in such matters, I could desire that the common rendering were the true one. I know of no more exact description of Christ, than that he was a living and human manifestation of the character of God.[[197]]
(e.) Let us now turn to the introductory verses of the Epistle to the Hebrews; a passage which is claimed as the clearest disclosure of the Deity of Christ; for no discoverable reason, except that from its great obscurity, it reveals less, perhaps, than any other portion of Scripture, except the Revelations. From the earliest times it has been justly regarded as exceedingly doubtful whether the Apostle Paul was the author of this letter; the difficulties and darkness of which are of a very different character from those which embarrass us in his noble writings, and arise from mental habits far more artificial and less healthy than his. But whatever be the authority of this work, and whatever the doctrine of its introductory portion, it is so far from giving any support to the Trinitarian sentiments, that it affords, even in its most exalted language, arguments sufficient to disprove them. The first verses of the epistle, altered slightly from the common translation, in order to exhibit more faithfully the meaning of the original, are as follows:—
“God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath, at the close of these days, spoken unto us by his Son; whom he hath appointed heir of all things; through whom also he made the ages of the world; who, being the brightness of his glory, and the image of his nature, and ruling all things by the word of his power, having by himself made purification of our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high; being become so much greater than the angels, as he hath obtained by inheritance a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, ‘thou art my son; I have this day begotten thee?’ And again, ‘I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son.’ And when ever he may again introduce his first-born into the world, it (i.e. the Scripture) saith, ‘let all the angels of God pay homage to him.’ And with reference to the angels, it saith, ‘who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.’ But with reference to the son, it saith, ‘thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom; thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore, O God! thy God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.’”
I terminate the quotation here, because I do not believe that the following words have any relation to Christ. The writer’s argument not only admits, but requires, that they should be referred to the supreme God and Father of all.