Expressions which appear to contain the statement that the Son was created are found in Clement of Alexandria (Strom., V, xiv; VI, vii), Tatian (Orat., v), Tertullian (“Adv. Prax.” vi; "Adv. “Adv. Hermong.”, xviii, xx), Origen (In Joan., I, n. 22). Clement speaks of Wisdom as “created before all things” (protoktistos), and Tatian terms the Word the "first-begotten work of (ergon prototokon) Of the Father. Yet the meaning of these authors is clear. In Colossians 1:16, St. Paul says that all things were created in the Son. This was understood to signify that creation took place according to exemplar ideas predetermined by God and existing in the Word. In view of this, it might be said that the Father created the Word, this term being used in place of the more accurate generated, inasmuch as the exemplar ideas of creation were communicated by the Father to the Son. Or, again, the actual Creation of the world might be termed the creation of the Word, since it takes place according to the ideas which exist in the Word. The context invariably shows that the passage is to be understood in one or another of these senses. The expression is undoubtedly very harsh, and it certainly would never have been employed but for the verse, Proverbs 8:22, which is rendered in the Septuagint and the old Latin versions, “The Lord created (ektise) me, who am the beginning of His ways.” As the passage was understood as having reference to the Son, it gave rise to the question **how it could be said that Wisdom was created (Origen, “Princ.”, I, ii, n. 3). **It is further to be remembered that accurate terminology in regard to the relations between the Three Persons was the fruit of the controversies which sprang up in the fourth century. **The writers of an earlier period were not concerned with Arianism, **and employed expressions which in the light of subsequent errors are seen to be not merely inaccurate, but dangerous. (4) **Greater difficulty is perhaps presented by a series of passages which appear to assert that prior to the Creation of the world the Word was not a distinct hypostasis from the Father. These are found in Justin (C. Tryphon., lxi), Tatian (Con. Graecos, v), Athenagoras (Legat., x), Theophilus (Ad Autol., II, x, 22); Hippolytus (Con. Noet., x); Tertullian (“Adv. Prax.”, v-vii; “Adv. Hermogenem” xviii). Thus Theophilus writes (op. cit., n. 22): **"What else is this voice [heard in Paradise] but the Word of God Who is also His Son? . . . For before anything came into being, He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought ). But when God wished to make all that He had determined on, then did He beget Him as the uttered Word [logos prophorikos], the firstborn of all creation, not, however, Himself being left without Reason (logos), but having begotten Reason, and ever holding converse with Reason." Expressions such as these are undoubtedly due to the influence of the Stoic philosophy: the logos endiathetos and logos prophorikos were current conceptions of that school. It is evident that these apologists were seeking to explain the Christian Faith to their pagan readers in terms with which the latter were familiar. Some Catholic writers have indeed thought that the influence of their previous training did lead some of them into Subordinationism, although the Church herself was never involved in the error (see LOGOS). Yet it does not seem necessary to adopt this conclusion. If the point of view of the writers be borne in mind, the expressions, strange as they are, will be seen not to be incompatibIe with orthodox belief. The early Fathers, as we have said, regarded Proverbs 8:22, and Colossians 1:15, as distinctly teaching that there is a sense in which the Word, begotten before all worlds, may rightly be said to have been begotten also in time. This temporal generation they conceived to be none other than the act of creation. They viewed this as the complement of the eternal generation, inasmuch as it is the external manifestation of those creative ideas which from all eternity the Father has communicated to the Eternal Word. Since, in the very same works which contain these perplexing expressions, other passages are found teaching explicitly the eternity of the Son, it appears most natural to interpret them in this sense. It should further be remembered that throughout this period theologians, when treating of the relation of the Divine Persons to each other, invariably regard them in connection with the cosmogony. Only later, in the Nicene epoch,
