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110 THE HISTORY OF HERESIES,
26. St. Justin, the Philosopher and Martyr, who died about
the year 161, clearly speaks of the Divinity of Christ. He says
"
in his first : Apology Christ, the Son of God the Father, who
alone is properly called his Son and his Word, because with
Him before all creatures he existed and is begotten. *
Mark
how the Saint calls Christ properly the Son and the Word,
existing with the Father before all creatures, and generated by
him; the Word, therefore, is the proper Son of God, existing
with the Father before all creatures, and is not, therefore, a
the
"
creature himself. In his second Apology he : says When
Word is the first-born of God, he is also God." In his Dialogue
with Triphon, he proves that Christ in the Old Testament was
called the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, and he then con
cludes by addressing the Jews :
"
If," says he,
"
you understood
the prophets, you would not deny that he is God, the Son of the
only and self-existing God." I omit many other passages
of the
same tenor, and I pass on to answer the objections of the So-
cinians. St. Justin, they say, in his Dialogue with Triphon, and
in his Apology, asserts that the Father is the cause of the Word,
and existed before the Word. To this we answer : the Father is
called the cause of the Son, not as creator, but as generator, and
the Father is said to be before the Son, not in time, but in origin,
and, therefore, some Fathers have called the Father the cause of
the Son, as being the principle of the Son. They also object
that St. Justin calls the Son the Minister of God" Administrum
esse Deo." We reply he is God s Minister as man, that is,
according to human nature. They make many other captious
objections of this sort, which are refuted in Juenin s
Theology (3),
but the " few words of the Saint :
already quoted Cum verbuni
Deus etiam est" when the Word is also God, are quite enough
to answer them all.
27 St. Iraeneus, a disciple of St. Polycarp, and Bishop of
Lyons, who died in the beginning of the second century, says (4)
that the Son is true God, like the Father.
"
"
Neither," he says,
the Lord (the Father) nor the Holy Ghost would have abso
lutely called him God, if he was not true God." And again (5),
(3) Juenin, Theol. t. 3, c. 1, s. 1. (4)
(5) Idem, /. 4, r. 8.
St. Iran, ad H*r. / 3 c 6