“Such as Euthalius”! You had evidently forgotten when you penned that offensive sentence, that Euthalius is one of the few Fathers adduced by yourself[998] (but for whom you “gave no reference,”) in 1869,—when you were setting down the Patristic evidence in favour of Θεός.... This little incident is really in a high degree suggestive. Your practice has evidently been to appropriate Patristic references[999] without thought or verification,—prudently to abstain from dropping [pg 461] a hint how you came by them,—but to use them like dummies, for show. At the end of a few years, (naturally enough,) you entirely forget the circumstance,—and proceed vigorously to box the ears of the first unlucky Dean who comes in your way, whom you suspect of having come by his learning (such as it is) in the same slovenly manner. Forgive me for declaring (while my ears are yet tingling) that if you were even moderately acquainted with this department of Sacred Science, you would see at a glance that my Patristic references are never obtained at second hand: for the sufficient reason that elsewhere they are not to be met with. But waiving this, you have made it luce clarius to all the world that so late as the year 1882, to you “Euthalius” was nothing else but “a name.” And this really does astonish me: for not only was he a famous Ecclesiastical personage, (a Bishop like yourself,) but his work (the date of which is a.d. 458,) is one with which no Author of a “Critical Commentary” on S. Paul's Epistles can afford to be unacquainted. Pray read what Berriman has written concerning Euthalius (pp. 217 to 222) in his admirable “Dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16.” Turn also, if you please, to the Bibliotheca of Gallandius (vol. x. 197-323), and you will recognize the plain fact that the only reason why, in the “Quarterly Review,” “no reference is given for Euthalius,” is because the only reference possible is—1 Tim. iii. 16.
[j] The testimony of the letter ascribed to Dionysius Of Alexandria. Six other primitive witnesses to 1 Tim. iii. 16, specified.
Then further, you absolutely take no notice of the remarkable testimony which I adduced (p. 101) from a famous Epistle purporting to have been addressed by Dionysius of Alexandria (a.d. 264) to Paul of Samosata. That the long and [pg 462] interesting composition in question[1000] was not actually the work of the great Dionysius, is inferred—(whether rightly or wrongly I am not concerned to enquire)—from the fact that the Antiochian Fathers say expressly that Dionysius did not deign to address Paul personally. But you are requested to remember that the epistle must needs have been written by somebody:[1001] that it may safely be referred to the IIIrd century; and that it certainly witnesses to Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη,[1002]—which is the only matter of any real importance to my argument. Its testimony is, in fact, as express and emphatic as words can make it.
And here, let me call your attention to the circumstance that there are at least six other primitive witnesses, some of whom must needs have recognized the reading for which I am here contending, (viz. Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί,) though not one of them quotes the place in extenso, nor indeed refers to it in such a way as effectually to bar the door against reasonable dispute. The present is in fact just the kind of text which, from its undeniable grandeur,—its striking rhythm,—and yet more its dogmatic importance,—was sure to attract the attention of the earliest, no less than the latest of the Fathers. Accordingly, the author of the Epistle ad Diognetum[1003] clearly refers to it early in the IInd century; [pg 463] though not in a way to be helpful to us in our present enquiry. I cannot feel surprised at the circumstance.
The yet earlier references in the epistles of (1) Ignatius (three in number) are helpful, and may not be overlooked. They are as follows:—Θεοῦ ἀνθρωπίνως φανερουμένου:—ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος Θεός—εἶς Θεός ἐστιν ὁ φανερώσας ἑαυτὸν διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅς ἐστιν αὐτοῦ Λόγος ἀΐδιος.[1004] It is to be wished, no doubt, that these references had been a little more full and explicit: but the very early Fathers are ever observed to quote Scripture thus partially,—allusively,—elliptically.
(2) Barnabas has just such another allusive reference to the words in dispute, which seems to show that he must have read Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί: viz. Ἰησοῦς ... ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ τύπῳ καὶ ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς.[1005]—(3) Hippolytus, on two occasions, even more unequivocally refers to this reading. Once, while engaged in proving that Christ is God, he says:—Οὗτος προελθὼν εἰς κόσμον Θεὸς ἐν σώματι ἐφανερώθη:[1006]—and again, in a very similar passage which Theodoret quotes from the same Father's lost work on the Psalms:—Οὗτος ὁ προελθὼν εἰς τὸν κόσμον, Θεὸς καὶ ἄνθρωπος ἐφανερώθη.[1007]—(4) Gregory Thaumaturgus, (if it really be he,) seems also to refer directly to this place when he says (in a passage quoted by Photius[1008]),—καὶ ἔστι Θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ὁ ἄσαρκος ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς.—Further, (5) in the Apostolical Constitutions, we meet with the expression,—Θεὸς Κύριος ὁ ἐπιφανεὶς ἡμῖν εν σαρκί.[1009]
And when (6) Basil the Great [a.d. 377], writing to the men of Sozopolis whose faith the Arians had assailed, remarks that such teaching “subverts the saving Dispensation of our Lord Jesus Christ;” and, blending Rom. xvi. 25, 26 with “the great mystery” of 1 Tim. iii. 16,—(in order to afford himself an opportunity of passing in review our Saviour's work for His Church in ancient days,)—viz. “After all these, at the end of the day, αὐτὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, γενόμενος ἐκ γυναικός:”[1010]—who will deny that such an one probably found neither ὅς nor ὅ, but Θεός, in the copy before him?
I have thought it due to the enquiry I have in hand to give a distinct place to the foregoing evidence—such as it is—of Ignatius, Barnabas, Hippolytus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Apostolical Constitutions, and Basil. But I shall not build upon such foundations. Let me go on with what is indisputable.
[k] The testimony of Cyril of Alexandria.
Next, for Cyril of Alexandria, whom you decline to accept as a witness for Θεός. You are prepared, I trust, to submit to the logic of facts?