According to our English Bible the Son of God under the name of the Word seems to be called God by the apostle John, ch. 1, v. 1. But it was not the purpose of John to represent the Word as the infinite, supreme, almighty God. ORIGEN, who wrote in Greek, in the third century, and understood the language better than any modern critic, says, that John's assertion is that, "the _logos_, or word, was _a god_," using the word god in its inferior, well-known sense, as is proved by his omission of the article. If he had inserted the article, he would have said, that "the logos was _the_ God, the supreme God, Jehovah." The plain teaching is, there is one God. With him was the _logos_ in the beginning, an exalted, glorious being; a second, inferior God; a being derived from God; and in this sense a divine being.――Besides Origen, Philo and several other fathers of the three first centuries speak of John's omission of the article here as a proof that by the word god he did not mean the Supreme God. Consider also, that if the logos existed "_with_ God," then he was not the very God, with whom he existed.――On the other hand, it is a matter of no weight that when the supreme God is meant, yet the article is often omitted; for it is an established principle that it may be omitted when the name of God is sufficiently definite without it. In John 1:6,――"a man sent from God:" here is an omission of it as unnecessary. So v. 12, 13, 18. Origen again says,――"Angels are called gods because they are divine; but we are not commanded to worship them in the place of God, and hence they are not really gods." He says, the article is withheld, when what is called god is a being different "from the self-existent God, having a communicated divinity, being a divine person." Such also was the opinion of Clemens Alexandrinus and Eusebius; and they were men more competent to decide a matter concerning the construction of the Greek language than any modern critic.――In several of the first centuries it was the judgment of such Fathers as Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Clemens, Origen, &c., that the word god as applied to Christ denoted a celestial nature, superior to all creatures, but inferior to the Supreme God. But the authority of Christ himself is more decisive,――"My Father is greater than I:" and the whole of scripture shows, that the one perfect God and his Son are two distinct intelligent Beings. As the word in Greek, Acts 28:6, has no article our translators have very properly said "a god." If any one will look at 2 Thess. 2:4, he will see, that the word God occurs four times and undistinguished in the English Testament, but in the Greek the word for God appears once――"in the temple of God"――_with_ the article, showing that the true Supreme God is meant,――and three times _without_ the article, showing, that the word is used in an inferior sense, that a false god was intended. Dr. Macknight's translation is