in the words:--

"It is declared [by David in Prophecy,] that He would come forth
from the highest heavens, and again return to the same places, in
order that you may recognize Him as God coming forth from above and
man living among men." (Dial. ch. lxiv.)

Again: though St. John asserts by implication the equality in point of
nature of the Father and the Son (John v. 18), yet he also very
repeatedly records words of Christ which assert His subordination to the
Father. Nowhere in the Synoptics do we read such words as "I can of mine
own self do nothing." "I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which hath sent me" (John v. 30): "My meat is to do the will of
Him that sent me, and to finish His work" (iv. 34; also John vi. 38): "I
have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a
commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." (xii. 49)

Now Justin Martyr reproduces these intimations of the subordination of
the Son:--

"Who is also called an Angel, because He announces to men whatsoever
the Maker of all things, above Whom there is no other God, wishes to
announce to them." (Dial. ch. lvi.)

Again:--

"I affirm that He has never at any time done anything which He Who
made the world, above Whom there is no other God, has not wished Him
both to do and to engage Himself with." (Dial. lvi.)

Again:--

"Boasts not in accomplishing anything through His own will or
might." (Ch. ci.)

Let the reader clearly understand that I do not lay any stress
whatsoever on these passages taken by themselves or together; but taken
in connection with the intimation of the Word and Sonship asserted in
St. John, and reproduced by Justin, they are very significant indeed.

St. John asserts that Jesus is the Word and the Only Begotten--that He
is "Lord" and "God," and equal with the Father as being His Son (v. 18);
but, lest men conceive of the Word as an independent God, he asserts the
subordination of the Son as consisting, not in inferiority of nature,
but in submission of will.

Justin reproduces in the same terms the teaching of St. John respecting
the Logos--that the Logos was the Only Begotten, God-begotten, Lord and
God. And then, lest his adversaries should assume from this that Christ
was an independent God, he guards it by the assertion of the same
doctrine of subordination of will; neither the doctrine nor the
safeguard being expressl