EXCURSUS ON THE WORDS  gennhqeta   

 ou    poihqenta  ] (J. B. Lightfoot. The 

Apostolic Fathers--Part II. Vol. ii. Sec. I. pp. 90, et seqq.)

The Son is here [Ignat. Ad. Eph. vii.] declared to be 

 gennh   os   as man and 

 a  , ennhtos   as God, for this is 

clearly shown to be the meaning from the parallel clauses. Such 

language is not in accordance with later theological definitions, which 

carefully distinguished between  genhtos   and 

 gennhtos   between  agenhtos   and 

 agennhtos  ; so that  genhtos  , 

 agenhtos   respectively denied and affirmed the eternal 

existence, being equivalent to  ktistos  , 

 aktistos  , while  gennhtos  , 

 agen  htos   described certain 

ontological relations, whether in time or in eternity. In the later 

theological language, therefore, the Son was 

 gennhtos   even in his Godhead. See esp. Joann. 

Damasc. de Fid. Orth. i. 8 [where he draws the conclusion that only 

the Father is  agennhtos  , and only the Son 

 gennhtos  ].

There can be little doubt however, that Ignatius wrote 

 gennh?os    kai   

 agennhtos  , though his editors frequently alter it into 

 gennh?os    kai   

 agennhtos  . For (1) the Greek MS. still retains the 

double [Greek nun] v, though the claims of orthodoxy would be a 

temptation to scribes to substitute the single v. And to this reading also the Latin genitus et 

ingenitus points. On the other hand it cannot be concluded that 

translators who give factus et non factus had the words with one v, for 

this was after all what Ignatius meant by the double v, and they would 

naturally render his words so as to make his orthodoxy apparent. (2) 

When Theodoret writes  gennhtos    ex   

 agennhtou  , it is clear that he, or the person before 

him who first substituted this reading, must have read 

 gennhtos    kai   

 agennhtos  , for there would be no temptation to alter 

the perfectly orthodox  genhtos    kai   

 agenhtos  , nor (if altered) would it have taken this 

form. (3) When the interpolator substitutes  o   

 monos    alhqinos   

 Qeos    o    agennhtos   

. . .  tou    de   

 monogonous     pathr   

 kai    gennhtwr  , the natural inference 

is that he too, had the forms in double v, which he retained, at the 

same time altering the whole run of the sentence so as not to do 

violence to his own doctrinal views; see Bull Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 2 <s> 6. 

(4) The quotation in Athanasius is more difficult. The MSS. vary, and 

his editors write  genhtos    kai   

 agenhtos  . Zahn too, who has paid more attention to 

this point than any previous editor of Ignatius, in his former work (Ign. 

v. Ant. p. 564), supposed Athanasius to have read and written the 

words with a single v, though in his subsequent edition of Ignatius (p. 

338) he declares himself unable to determine between the single and 

double v. I believe, however, that the argument of Athanasius decides 

in favour of the vv. Elsewhere he insists repeatedly on the distinction 

between  ktixein   and  gennan  , 

justifying the use of the latter term as applied to the divinity of the 

Son, and defending the statement in the Nicene Creed 

 gennhton    ek    ths   

 ousias    tou    patros   

 ton    uion   

 omoousion   (De Synod. 54, 1, p. 612). Although he is 

not responsible for the language of the Macrostich (De Synod. 3, 1, p. 

590), and would have regarded it as inadequate without the 

 omoousion   yet this use of terms entirely harmonizes 

with his own. In the passage before us, ib. <s><s> 46, 47 (p. 607), he 

is defending the use of homousios at Nicaea, notwithstanding that it 

had been previously rejected by the council which condemned Paul of 

Samosata, and he contends that both councils were orthodox, since 

they used homousios in a different sense. As a parallel instance he 

takes the word  agennhtos   which like homousios is 

not a scriptural word, and like it also is used in two ways, signifying 

either (1) T o    on   

 men  ,  mhte    de   

 gennhqen    mhte   

 olws    ekon    ton   

 aition    or(2) T o   

 aktiston  . In the former sense the Son cannot be called 

 agennhtos  , in the latter he may be so called. Both 

uses, he says, are found in the fathers. Of the latter he quotes the 

passage in Ignatius as an example; of the former he says, that some 

writers subsequent to Ignatius declare  en   

 to    agennhton    o   

 pathr  ,  kai    eis   

 o    ex    autou   

 uios    gnhsios  , 

 gennhma    alhqinon   

 k  .  t  .  l  . [He may 

have been thinking of Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 7, which I shall quote 

below.] He maintains that both are orthodox, as having in view two 

different senses of the word  agennhton  , and the same, 

he argues, is the case with the councils which seem to take opposite 

sides with regard to homousios. It is dear from this passage, as Zahn 

truly says, that Athanasius is dealing with one and the same word 

throughout; and, if so, it follows that this word must be 

 agennhton  , since  agenhton   would 

be intolerable in some places. I may add by way of caution that in two 

other passages, de Decret. Syn. Nic. 28 (1, p. 184), Orat. c. Arian. i. 30 

(1, p. 343), St. Athanasius gives the various senses of 

 agenhton   (for this is plain from the context), and that 

these passages ought not to be treated as parallels to the present 

passage which is concerned with the senses of 

 agennhton  . Much confusion is thus created, e.g. in 

Newman's notes on the several passages in the Oxford translation of 

Athanasius (pp. 51 sq., 224 sq.), where the three passages are treated 

as parallel, and no attempt is made to discriminate the readings in the 

several places, but "ingenerate" is given as the rendering of both alike. 

If then Athanasius who read  gennhtos   

 kai    agennhtos   in Ignatius, there is 

absolutely no authority for the spelling with one v. The earlier editors 

(Voss, Useher, Cotelier, etc.), printed it as they found it in the MS.; 

but Smith substituted the forms with the single v, and he has been 

followed more recently by Hefele, Dressel, and some other. In the 

Casatensian copy of the MS., a marginal note is added, 

 anagnwsteon  agenhtos    tout    esti   

 mh    poihqeis  . Waterland (Works, 

III., p. 240 sq., Oxf. 1823) tries ineffectually to show that the form 

with the double v was invented by the fathers at a later date to express 

their theological conception. He even "doubts whether there was any 

such word as  agennhtos   so early as the time of 

Ignatius." In this he is certainly wrong.

The MSS. of early Christian writers exhibit much confusion between 

these words spelled with the double and the single v. See e.g. Justin 

Dial. 2, with Otto's note; Athenag. Suppl. 4 with Otto's note; Theophil, 

ad Autol. ii. 3, 4; Iren. iv. 38, 1, 3; Orig. c. Cels. vi. 66; Method. de 

Lib. Arbitr., p. 57; Jahn (see Jahn's note 11, p. 122); Maximus in 

Euseb. Praep. Ev. vii. 22; Hippol. Haer. v. 16 (from Sibylline Oracles); 

Clem. Alex. Strom v. 14; and very frequently in later writers. Yet 

notwithstanding the confusion into which later transcribers have thus 

thrown the subject, it is still possible to ascertain the main facts 

respecting the usage of the two forms. The distinction between the two 

terms, as indicated by their origin, is that  agenhtos    

denies the creation, and  agennhtos   the generation or 

parentage. Both are used at a very early date; e.g. 

 agenhtos   by Parmenides in Clem. Alex. Strom. v. l4, 

and by Agothon in Arist. Eth. Nic. vii. 2 (comp. also Orac. Sibyll. 

prooem. 7, 17); and  agennhtos   in Soph. Trach. 61 

(where it is equivalent to  dusgenwn  . Here the 

distinction of meaning is strictly preserved, and so probably it always 

is in Classical writers; for in Soph. Trach. 743 we should after Porson 

and Hermann read  agenhton   with Suidas. In 

Christian writers also there is no reason to suppose that the distinction 

was ever lost, though in certain connexions the words might be used 

convertibly. Whenever, as here in Ignatius, we have the double v 

where we should expect the single, we must ascribe the fact to the 

indistinctness or incorrectness of the writer's theological conceptions, 

not to any obliteration of the meaning of the terms themselves. To this 

early father for instance the eternal  gen?hsis   of the 

Son was not a distinct theological idea, though substantially he held 

the same views as the Nicene fathers respecting the Person of Christ. 

The following passages from early Christian writers will serve at once 

to show how far the distinction was appreciated, and to what extent 

the Nicene conception prevailed in ante-Nicene Christianity; Justin 

Apol. ii. 6, comp. ib. 13; Athenag. Suppl. 10 (comp. ib. 4); 

Theoph. ad. Aut. ii. 3; Tatian Orat. 5; Rhodon in Euseb. H. E. v. 13; 

Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 7; Orig. c. Cels. vi. 17, ib. vi. 52; Concil. 

Antioch (A.D. 269) in Routh Rel. Sacr. III., p. 290; Method. de Creat. 

5. In no early Christian writing, however, is the distinction more 

obvious than in the Clementine Homilies, x. 10 (where the distinction 

is employed to support the writer's heretical theology): see also viii. 

16, and comp. xix. 3, 4, 9, 12. The following are instructive passages 

as regards the use of these words where the opinions of other heretical 

writers are given; Saturninus, Iren. i. 24, 1; Hippol. Haer. vii. 28; 

Simon Magus, Hippol. Haer. vi. 17, 18; the Valentinians, Hippol. 

Haer. vi. 29, 30; the Ptolemaeus in particular, Ptol. Ep. ad. Flor. 4 (in 

Stieren's Ireninians, Hipaeus, p. 935); Basilides, Hippol. Haer. vii. 22; 

Carpocrates, Hippol. Haer. vii. 32.

From the above passages it will appear that Ante-Nicene writers were 

not indifferent to the distinction of meaning between the two words; 

and when once the othodox Christology was formulated in the Nicene 

Creed in the words  gennhqenta    ou   

 poihqenta  , it became henceforth impossible to 

overlook the difference. The Son was thus declared to be 

 gennhtos   but not  genhtos  . I am 

therefore unable to agree with Zahn (Marcellus, pp. 40, 104, 223, Ign. 

von Ant. p. 565), that at the time of the Arian controversy the 

disputants were not alive to the difference of meaning. See for 

example Epiphanius, Haer. lxiv. 8. But it had no especial interest for 

them. While the orthodox party clung to the homousios as enshrining 

the doctrine for which they fought, they had no liking for the terms 

 agennhtos   and  gennhtos   as applied 

to the Father and the Son respectively, though unable to deny their 

propriety, because they were affected by the Arians and applied in 

their own way. To the orthodox mind the Arian formula 

 ouk    hn    prin   

 gennhqhnai   or some Semiarian formula hardly less 

dangerous, seemed always to be lurking under the expression  Qeos   

 g   nnhtos   as applied to the 

Son. Hence the language of Epiphanius Haer. lxxiii. 19: "As you 

refuse to accept our homousios because though used by the fathers, it 

does not occur in the Scriptures, so will we decline on the same 

grounds to accept your 

 agnnhtos  ." Similarly Basil 

c. Eunom. i., iv., and especially ib. further on, in which last passage he 

argues at great length against the position of the heretics, 

 ei   

 agnnhtos  , 

 fasin  ,  o    pathr  , 

 genntos    de    o   

 uis  ,  ou   

 ths    auths   

 ousas  . See also the 

arguments against the Anomoeans in[Athan.] Dial. de Trin. ii. passim. 

This fully explains the reluctance of the orthodox party to handle terms 

which their adversaries used to endanger the homousios. But, when 

the stress of the Arian controversy was removed, it became convenient 

to express the Catholic doctrine by saying that the Son in his divine 

nature was  gnnhtos   but not 

 gnhtos  . And this 

distinction is staunchly maintained in later orthodox writers, e.g. John 

of Damascus, already quoted in the beginning of this Excursus.