William Magee (1816) vs. Unitarian/Socinian Claims on Hebrews 1:2 and the Personal Pre-Existence of Jesus

 

The passage in Heb. i. 2. which directly assigns the work of CREATION to Christ, will be admitted to be one of those, that “seem to assert his pre-existence.” In what manner is this fallacious semblance to be removed?—Δι’ ου και της αιωνας εποιησεν, Grotius translates, FOR whom he made the worlds: and thus gives to the word δια a signification, which not only has no parallel in the entire of the New Testament, but it is in direct opposition to the established rule of all Grammarians: δια, with a genitive case commonly signifying the means by which; but never implying the final cause, unless when joined with the accusative . . . The solitary instance which Grotius has been able to discover in defence of his translation of the word δια, is to be found in Rom. vi. 4; in which it is manifest that his criticism cannot be maintained . . . Whilst Grotius thus violates the rules and analogy of the language, in one part of the sentence, later Socinians, finding this mode of distorting the sense indefensible, have betaken themselves to another, where they have exercised an equal violence on the original.—Τους αιωνας, which elsewhere in this very Epistle (xi. 3) is allowed to mean the material world; and which is always used plurally by the Jews, as implying the inferior and superior worlds; and in its connexion here, exactly corresponds with the things in Heaven, and the things in Earth (Col. i. 16) and upon the whole clearly means the physical world, or the Heavens and the Earth; is yet stained by the Socinians to imply the Evangelical dispensations: so that he entire passage is made to signify, merely, that by Christ’s ministry, there should be, as it were, a new creation; that is, a new church begun upon earth. Now, it deserves to be considered, on what principle of just interpretation, such a translation can be adopted. It is true, that Christ, in some of the Greek versions of Isai. xi. 6. has been stiled, πατηρ του μελλοντος αιωνος. But, admitting the word here to imply a dispensation that was to come, does it follow that this one dispensation is to be expressed by the plural word αιωνας? To force upon it this meaning, is again to do violence to grammar and usage. And yet this is done, because the plural interpretation, by whom he constituted the AGES or DISPENSATIONS, lets in the obnoxious idea of pre-existence, as completely as the sense of a material creation can do. (William Magee, Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice, Volume 1 [London: E. Hodson, 1816], 72-74)