6. But proper name for the Father of all things, Wlio is Names
The fallen Angels pretended to he gods.
also; God, Who made the whole world, having subjected the Apol. things on earth to man, and arranged the heavenly bodies -Hi^ for the increase of fruits, and the changes of seasons, and laid down a divine law for these ^, which He is also seen to have created for man, delivered the care of man, and of things under heaven, to the Angels whom He appointed over them ; but the Angels transgressed this order, and fell.^®"*^' into intercourse with women, and begot sons, who are those that are called demons ^ ; and moreover they henceforth subjected the human race to themselves; in part, by magic writings; in part, by fears and punishments which they inflicted on them ; in part, through their instruction of sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which they stood in need after they were enslaved by the passions of their lusts : and they sowed among men murders, wars, adulteries, and intemperance, and every kind of vice.
Hence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that the Angels, and the demons that were born of them, did those things to men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they described, referred them to God Himself, and to those whom they considered as sons begotten of Him ; and to the sons of those whom they called His brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to their sons in like manner, for they called every one of these by the name which each of the Angels gave to himself, and to his children.
6. But proper name for the Father of all things, Wlio is Names unbegotten, there is none.
For whoever is called by a and name, has the person older than himself who gives him that ^^"'.^j^name"^.
But the terms Father, and God, and Creator, and cast out ^ TovroLS.
Such is the conjecture of Apol. chap. 22.
*' We may find in Holy Thirlby ; the Ms. reading is tovtov, Writ how, from the Angels who fell, referring to vS/xov, with little difference sprang a race of demons more corrupt of sense. The Benedictine approves but than themselves, which has been condoes not adopt the change; 'but Otto demned by God, together with its proobserves, " If we read rovrois, referring genitors, and with that its chief, of to the heavenly bodies, oupaviois (Ttoiwhom we spoke."
Athenagoras, Apol.
X^ioL9 mentioned before, we have a §. 25. holds that the giants were the subject to which to refer the words that offspring of these Angels.
It is to be follow, "which also He is seen to have observed, that the usual Greek copies created for man:" and the whole senof the book of Genesis had ange/s of tence runs in the usual order."
We God, for sons of God. have translated the passage according ^ Ben. cites S. John Damasc. Mart, to this suggestion. of S. Babylas. Parall. p. 785. B.
So Apology i. 55.
Tertullian says
Of Divine Names.
No proper name of the Father, J^usT.
Lord, and Master, are not names, but terms of address ^^ derived from His benefits and His works.
But His Son, Who alone is properly called Son, the Word, Who was before all things, and Who was with Him, and was begotten % when in the beginning through Him He created and ordered all things, is called Christ, as He was anointed
; and by Him God set all things in order, and this name itself contains an unknown signification ; as also the title God, is not a name, but the notion which is implanted in the nature of man, of a thing which can hardly be explained.
But Jesus has the name and signification both of Man and of Saviour; for He was even made Man as I have said, and born according to the will of God and the Father, for those who believe in Him, and for the destruction of devils: and now you may learn this even from what passes under your own eyes; for numbers of those who w^ere possessed with devils throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our people, the Christians, by exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ,
Who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed, and do even now heal; when they were not cured by all the other exorcists, and practisers of incantations, and charmers; overthrowing and driving out the devils who had possession of men.
The 7. Hence, God also refrains from causing the confusion r'^gV and destruction of the whole world ^, that both the wicked served Angels, and devils, and men, may exist no longer; because
Chrisof the race of the Christians, which He knows to be in tians. nature the cause of its preservation^.
Otherwise it would not by be no longer possible for you to execute, and be urged to,
Fate. such things as you do by evil demons; but the fire of judgment would descend, and utterly dissolve all things; just as ^ Ben. here observes, that Justin Diognet. §. G. Origen, Cels. iv. p. 175. speaks, like many other authors, of a and viii. p. 424. Clem. A. Quis Dives, Generation of the Son at the creation of p. 36. the world. But this generation, he con- & Literally, " Of which He knows in tinues, " in no degree detracts from the nature that it is a cause."
Otto, on eternity of the Son, since He was with this passage, observes, after giving the the Father before He went forth to the different versions of some of the Editors, creation of the world."
See Bull. Def. that we should probably read it thus Fid.
Nic.
III. ii.
1. and Grabe's 'the race of Christians, which He knows note. to be a cause (in causa) of the Universe
•" Ben. cites Apol. §. 28, and A5. and being preserved.'
Dial. §. 39. Hermas I. §. 2. and Ep. ad
Filial Conjlagrationi not periodical as Stoics hold.
QS formerly the waters of the flood left no one, but only him, Apol. with his family, who is called by us Noah, and by you '— Deucalion ; from whom, again, such multitudes were born, of whom some were evil, and others good.
So we also affirm, that there will be the conflagration ; but not like that of the Stoics according to the theory of the change of all things into one another, which appears a most degrading notion*.
Neither is it by fatality that men do or endure what takes place; but each does well, or ill, by his choice; and by the activity of evil demons it is that the good, as Socrates and the like, are persecuted and imprisoned: but Sardanapalus, and Epicurus, and the like, appear to flourish in plenty and splendour.
But the Stoics, not understanding this, declare that all things happen by the compulsion of fatality.
But, . because God in the beginning created the race both of Angels, and of men, with free will, they will justly suffer in eternal fire the penalty of whatever they have done amiss; for it is the nature of every creature to be capable of vice and of virtue, nor would any of them be praiseworthy if it had not the power of being turned toward either.
And men every where who have been legislators or philosophers according to right reason, shew this from their directions to do one thing, and to abstain from another; and the Stoics in their system of morals hold the same principles in great honour ; so that you may see that in their doctrine of principles, and incorporeals, they do not succeed well; for if they say that the actions of men are done by fatality, they will either assert that God is nothing but what undergoes change and alteration, and is ever resolved into the same elements; and will appear to have a comprehension h The pantheistic doctrine of the to lie not in the will but in fate or neStoics identified the world with God, cessity, and in consequence denied the Whom they considered in consequence substantive existence of virtue and to he corporeal, and therefore corruptivice; whilst, teaching that the soul ble and subject to dissolution.
They was mortal, they of course allowed no held a succession of workls to be genestate of rewards or punishments after rated and destroyed by a succession of death, and thus they fell into those conconfiagrations, after which every thing tradictions with which St. Justin urges was to be renewed in perfect resemthem. Origen, cont.
Cels. p.
17, 169. blaoce of what had been before and Mosheim de rebus, p.
24.
Brucker, was to be again.
They considered the Hist.
Crit. vol.
2. Cudworth's Intelgoverning principle of human actions lectual System, chap. iii. Sect. 6. &c.
Malice of demons against all who live hy Reason.
Just, only of things corruptible, and to say that God Himself '^^'^'^' both in part and in whole comes into every kind of vice; or, that virtue and vice are nothing; which is opposed to every sound idea, and reason, and mind.
Right 8. And those who followed the doctrines of the Stoics, reason g-^^^^g ^^y w^ere admirable in their ethical system ; as were hated, also the poets in some respects, because of the seed of that 1 \6'Yov reason' which is implanted in the whole race of man
; were, we know, both hated and put to death.
We are aware of Heraclitus, as I have already said ; and Musonius amongst those of our own times, and others ; for, as I have signified, the devils are ever at work to cause all who labour to direct their lives in any degree whatever according to reason, and to avoid vice, to be bated.
And it is nothing wonderful if the devils are proved to cause those, who live not' according to a part of that seminal reason, but by the knowledge and contemplation of the whole Word, which is Christ; to be hated much worse.
But they will undergo a fitting punishment, and vengeance, when they are shut up in eternal fire.
For if they are even now defeated by men through the name of Jesus Christ, this is a warning of the punishment which is in store for themselves, and for all who serve them, in eternal fire; for thus both all the Prophets foretold that it should be; and Jesus, our Teacher, instructed us.
Eternal 9. But that no one may repeat what is said by those who 5'^^.°° are considered Philosophers,, that what we say about the wicked being punished in eternal fire, is a mere boast, and a bugbear ; and that it is through fear, and not for the sake of what is good, and pleasurable, that we would have men live virtuously ; I will briefly reply to this, that if it be not so, there is no God; or if there ie one, He cares not for men; and virtue and vice are nothing; and, as I have said, the lawgivers punish unjustly those who transgress their good ordinances.
But since they are not unjust, and their Father teaches them by the Word to do the same things as • The word ' not' which is here sense evidently requires.
Ben. refers omitted in the Ms. should he inserted, to S. Clem.
Al. Strom, i. p. 288, 298, as Ben. and Otto agree, and as the 674. &c. Protrept. p. G9.