Query XXVI. p. 412.
The words [Greek: ouch hos genomenon] he construes thus: "not as
eternally generated," as if he had read [Greek: gennomenon], supplying
[Greek: aidios] by imagination. The sense and meaning of the word
[Greek: genomenon], signifying made, or created, is so fixed and
certain in this author, &c.
This is but one of fifty instances in which the true Englishing of
[Greek: genomenos, egeneto], &c. would have prevented all mistake. It is
not 'made', but 'became'. Thus here:--begotten eternally, and not as one
that became; that is, as not having been before. The only-begotten Son
never 'became'; but all things 'became' through him.
Ib. 412.
'Et nos etiam Sermoni atque Rationi, itemque Virtuti, per quae omnia
molitum Deum ediximus, propriam substantiam Spiritum inscribimus; cui
et Sermo insit praenuntianti, et Ratio adsit disponenti, et Virtus
perficienti. Hunc ex Deo prolatum didicimus, et prolatione generatum,
et idcirco Filium Dei et Deum dictum ex unitate substantiae'.--Tertull.
Apol. c. 21.
How strange and crude the realism of the Christian Faith appears in
Tertullian's rugged Latin!
Ib. p. 414.
He represents Tertullian as making the Son, in his highest capacity,
ignorant of the day of judgment.
Of the true sense of the text, Mark xiii. 32., I still remain in doubt;
but, though as zealous and stedfast a Homouesian as Bull and Waterland
themselves, I am inclined to understand it of the Son in his highest
capacity; but I would avoid the inferiorizing consequences by a stricter
rendering of the [Greek: ei mae ho Pataer].
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