Another quite clear passage is Herm. Sim. ix. 12. 2, where the Son of God, co nomine, is described as 'anterior to all creation, so that he became the Father's ad\-iser in his creation ' (6 /lif vl&s toS 6eoO TrdtTT/s r^s KTiVews aiVoD Trpoyey^^yrepds itTTiv, k.t.X.). This evidently takes up the irpuTuTOKos TrdtrTjs Krlaeus of Col 1'^, as.suiuing the doctrine if not actually referring to the words.
Of the group of passages in Patr. Apost. where rah is certainly used in the sense of ' Son,' one at least. En. Diogn. viii. 9-11, refers unequivocally to the pre-Incarnate, ' having conceived a great and unalterable scheme, he communicated it to his Son alone ' (dye/coii'unTaTO fi6ycp ti^ ttcllSI). The state of the case appears to be, that while in Patr. Apost. the title is still predominantly referred to the in- carnate state, the writers have no sense of being confined to this, and are quite prepared to go be- yond it.
When we come to Justin all distinction is ob- literated, and tlie Son is frankly identified with the Logos ; Apol. ii. 6, ' But to the Father of all, who is uiibegotten, there is no name given. . . . And his Son, who alone is i)roperly called Son, the Word, who also was with him and was begotten before the works, when at first he created and arranged all things by him,' etc. (6 Si Mi iKdvov, 6 fi6vos Xeyifxevos Kvpiuji vlos, i X6yo^ irpd tuiv woitj- IiAtuv Kal (Twuv Kal y(vvwfifvo%, k.t.X.). Here we not only have ' Son ' and ' Word ' used as convertible, but a special stress is laid on the idea of ' genera- tion ' as involved in 'Sonship,' which a little later in Origen took shape in the doctrine of the Eternal Generation (de Princ. I. ii. 4, 9). Before this, in Ignat. Eph. vii. 2, both words yefi'iiTds and d7^i'i'i;Tov (v. I. yevip-is and ayivrp-os) had been applied to Christ, but with quite untechnical freedom (cf. Lightfoot, ad lor., and ii. 90-94; also Kobertson, Athnnasius, pp. 149, 475 n.).
The passage of Justin is very important as a landmark. Prom that time forwards what might be called the metaphysical treatment of the title
' Son ' becomes more and more common until it reaches its climax in the writers of tiie 4tli century.
Xote on the meaning of 'Son' in the Apostteg' Creed. — There arose in Gemmny in the years 1892-1894 a rather sharp discussion about the Apostles' Creed, begun by Harnack and taken up by Zahn, Kattenbusch, Cremer, and others. This also
Eroduced in England an admirable little volume of lectures by T. Swete {The Apostles' Creed, Cambridge, 1S91), which gives a concise account of most of the points at issue. Among these was the question as to the interpretation of the term ' Son ' in the Creed, which Harnack wi.shed to limit to the historic, aa contrasted with the prehistoric, Sonship. Dr. Swet« perhaps (p. :i6ff.) a little overstates both Harnack's contention and the strength of the arguments against it. And yet that contention is really too sweeping, though the point made by Kattenbusch in his recently completed larger work {Das Apost. Symbol, ii.
566f.), that the clause tov yiwyiDivra ix wvvjfz. ay. X. Mitp.x! Tx!
vetpQ. shows that the historic yutxris was in the author's mind, appears to be valid. It is true that the first interest in thia paragraph of the Creed is in historical facts. But at the same time, as Kattenbusch also verj' rightly observes, there is no antithesis to the Christology of Pre-e.\istence. The question is not really raised ; and yet, as we might perhaps put it, the conception of Sonship is le.ft open on that side. We are re- minded that the Creed is in its origin Western and not Oriental, And for Western thought more especially, the denial of a purely natural birth may be taken to imply pre-existence.
It should be added that recent research places the origin of the Creed with confidence in the first lialf of the 2nd cent., and many would say in the first quarter ; so that it would be strictly parallel to the .Apostolic Fathers.
2. Marcelliis of Anci/ra. — One episode in the controversies of the 4th cent, has a not incon- siderable rellex bearing on the interpretation of NT.
Marcellus of Ancyra was one of the keenest supporters of Nicene doctrine. lie seems, how- ever, to have asserted it on dillerent grounds from those commonly brouglit forward. The position he took up was in the first instance biblical. We have seen that the Arians exploited in their own interest the title 'Son.' They inferred from it the posteriority and inferiority of Him by whom it was borne. Marcellus appears to have met them by sa3'ing that the use which they made of the title was unwarranted and indeed altogether wide of the mark. According to him, the title ' Son ' had no reference to origin or to the pre- existent relation of Christ to the Father. The proper term to denote this relation was in his view not 'Son,' but 'Logos.' It appears to be a mis- take to say that he denied the ' Trinity ' or the distinct hypostatic existence of the Logos, though some of his speculations were not quite easily reconcilable with this. But his main contention was that ' Logos' was the proper name of the pre- Incamate and 'Son' of the Incarnate, and that the biblical writers observed this distinction, the only apparent exception being cases in which the title ' Son ' was used ' prophetically.' Eusebius of Ca^sarea, who replied to liim, marshals an impos- ing array of no fewer than thirty separate desig- nations which he maintains to have been also used of the Son before the Incarnation ; but they are nearly all wide of the mark, and it must be con- fessed that on this ground the victory rests rather with his opponent (see Euseb. de Eccl. Theol. i. 17-20, Migne, Pat. Gr. xxiv. 856-896 ; and on the wliole controver.sy, esp. the monograph by Zahn, Marcellus von Ann/ra, Gotha, 1867 ; and Moberly, Atonement and Personality (London, 1901, pp. 208-215).