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AND THEIR REFUTATION. 109
Council, held quite another opinion. In order, therefore, to
prove that the Socinians in this are totally astray, we will confine
our quotations to the works of the Fathers who preceded the
Council, who, if they have not made use of the very word
consubstantial, or of the same substance as the Father, have still
clearly expressed the same thing in equivalent terms.
24. The Martyr St. Ignatius, the successor of St. Peter in
the See of Antioch, who died in the year 108, attests, in several
places, the Divinity of Christ. In his Epistle ad Trallianos, he
"
writes : Who was truly born of God and the Virgin, but not in
"
the same manner and afterwards : The true ;"
God, the Word
born of the Virgin, he who in himself contains all mankind, was
truly begotten in the womb." Again, in his Epistle to the
" There is one carnal and spiritual physician, made
Ephesians :
and not made, God in man, true life in death, and both from
and from God and again,
in his Epistle to the Magne-
;" Mary
sians :
"
Jesus Christ, who was with the Father before all
ages,
at length appeared," and, immediately after, he says :
"
There
is but one God, who made himself manifest by Jesus Christ, his
Son, who is his eternal Word."
25. St. Polycarp was a disciple of St. John, and Bishop of
Smyrna ; he lived in the year 167. Eusebius (2) quotes a cele
brated Epistle written by the Church of Smyrna to that of Pon-
tus, giving an account of his martyrdom, and in it we read, that
"
Wherefore in
just before his death he thus expressed himself ;
all things I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, by the
eternal Pontiff, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, through whom, to
Thee, with him, in the Holy Ghost, be glory, now and for ever
more. Amen." First, therefore, St. Polycarp calls Christ the
eternal Pontiff, but nothing but God alone is eternal. Second
He the
glorifies Son, together with the Father, giving him equal
glory, which he would not have done unless he believed that the
Son was God equal to the Father. In his letter to the Philip-
pians he ascribes equally to the Son and to the Father the power
of giving grace and salvation.
"
says,
" and
Jesus Christ, sanctify you
and give you lot and part among his Saints."
(2)
Euseb. His. /. 4, c. 13.
May God the Father," he
in faith and truth