ng how they were compatible with the Catholic Faith, and
citing and dwelling upon other expressions which were totally
incompatible with any other belief. He showed that the crucial test of
orthodoxy, the one single term at which Arians and semi-Arians
scrupled--that is, the Homoousion or Consubstantiality of the Son with
the Father--was actually in use before the Nicene Council, and that it
was thoroughly in accordance with the teaching of the ante-Nicene
Fathers. This is proved, among other ways, by the constant use of a
simile which illustrates, as happily as earthly things can illustrate
heavenly, the true relation of the Son to the Father. Over and over
again this is compared by the early fathers to the ray of light which
proceeding from the sun is a part of it, and yet without any division or
diminution from it, but actually consubstantial with it. He fully admits
that the early fathers acknowledged a certain pre-eminence in the First
Person, but only such a pre-eminence as the term Father suggests, a
pre-eminence implying no inequality of nature, but simply a priority of
order, inasmuch as the Father is, as it were, the fountain of the Deity,
God in Himself,[431] while the Son is God _of_ God, and, to recur to the
old simile incorporated in the Nicene Creed, Light _of_ Light.[432]

Bishop Bull's two subsequent works on the subject of the Trinity
('Judicium Ecclesiae Catholicae' and 'Primitiva et Apostolica Traditio')
may be regarded as supplements to the 'Defence.' The object of the
'Judicium' was to show, in opposition to Episcopius, that the Nicene
fathers held a belief of Our Lord's true and proper divinity to be an
indispensable term of Catholic communion; his latest work was directed
against the opinion of Zuicker that Christ's divinity, pre-existence,
and incarnation were inventions of early heretics.[433]

It is somewhat remarkable that although in the interval which elapsed
between the publication of these and of his first work the Trinitarian
controversy in England had been assuming larger proportions and
awakening a wider interest, Bull never entered into the arena with his
countrymen. But the fact is, his point of view was different from
theirs. He confined himself exclusively to the historical aspect of
the question, while other defenders of the Trinity were 'induced to
overstep the boundaries of Scripture proof and historical testimony,
and push their inquiries into the dark recesses of metaphysical