The Ancient Witnesses

Chapter 3: The Beginning of Time • 93

ways, including the Lord created me ” by a few ancient witnesses. “What does your Bible say, Joseph?” I asked. He quickly turned to the passage and read aloud, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His work.” 12 From the Pre-Nicene choir, an elderly father, Athenagorus, saluted and was called on. “As Mentor has already shown,” he began, “we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable, who is apprehended by understanding and reason alone, who is encompassed by light, and beauty, and spirit, and power ineffable, by whom the universe has been created through His Logos, and set in order, and is maintained.” 13 The witness’s words were eloquent, and I listened carefully for his explanation of the Son’s relationship to the Father. “Let no one think that this talk of God having a Son is ridiculous,” Athenagorus continued, “for we have not come to our views on either God the Father or his Son as do the poets, who create myths in which they present the gods as no better than men. On the contrary, the Son of God is the Logos of the Father—He is in the Father and the Father is in the Son. But if in your great wisdom you would like to know what Son means, I will tell you in a few brief words: it means that he is the first begotten of the Father. This term is used not because he was created

12 The Authorized, or King James, Version.

13 Athenagorus, A Plea for the Christians , X (ANF 2, 133).