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| Two senses of the word Son, 1. adoptive; 2. essential; attempts of Arians to find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was created immediately by God (Asterius's view), or that our Lord alone partakes the Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He makes, really; though His creation and generation are not like man's; His generation independent of time; generation implies an internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God; explanation of Prov. viii. 22.
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Chapter III.—Two
senses of the word Son, 1. adoptive; 2. essential; attempts of Arians
to find a third meaning between these; e.g. that our Lord only was
created immediately by God (Asterius’s view), or that our Lord
alone partakes the Father. The second and true sense; God begets as He
makes, really; though His creation and generation are not like
man’s; His generation independent of time; generation implies an
internal, and therefore an eternal, act in God; explanation of
Prov. viii. 22.
6. They say then what
the others held and dared to maintain before them; “Not always
Father, not always Son; for the Son
was not before His generation, but, as others, came to be from nothing;
and in consequence God was not always Father of the Son; but, when the
Son came to be and was created, then was God called His Father. For the
Word is a creature and a work, and foreign and unlike the Father in
essence; and the Son is neither by nature the Father’s true Word,
nor His only and true Wisdom; but being a creature and one of the
works, He is improperly776
| 776 καταχρηστικῶς. This word is noticed and protested against by Alexander,
Socr. Hist. i. 6. p. 11 a. by the Semiarians at Ancyra, Epiph.
Hær. 73. n. 5. by Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 23. and
by Cyril, Dial. ii. t. v. i. pp. 432, 3. | called Word and
Wisdom; for by the Word which is in God was He made, as were all
things. Wherefore the Son is not true God777
| 777 Vid.
Ep. Æg. 12. Orat. i. §5. 6. de Synod.
15, 16. Athanas. seems to have had in mind Socr. i. 6. p. 10, 11, or
the like. | .”
Now it may serve to make them understand what
they are saying, to ask them first this, what in fact a son is, and of
what is that name significant778
| 778 Vid.
Orat. i. §38. The controversy turned on the question what
was meant by the word ‘Son.’ Though the Arians would not
allow with the Catholics that our Lord was Son by nature, and
maintained that the word implied a beginning of existence, they
did not dare to say that He was Son merely in the sense in which we are
sons, though, as Athan. contends, they necessarily tended to this
conclusion, directly they receded from the Catholic view. Thus Arius
said that He was a creature, ‘but not as one of the
creatures.’ Orat. ii. §19. Valens at Ariminum said
the same, Jerom. adv. Lucifer. 18. Hilary says, that not daring
directly to deny that He was God, the Arians merely asked
‘whether He was a Son.’ de Trin. viii. 3. Athanasius
remarks upon this reluctance to speak out, challenging them to present
‘the heresy naked,’ de Sent. Dionys. 2. init.
‘No one,’ he says elsewhere, ‘puts a light under a
bushel; let them shew the world their heresy naked.’ Ep.
Æg. 18. vid. ibid. 10. In like manner, Basil says that (though
Arius was really like Eunomius, in faith, contr. Eunom. i. 4)
Aetius his master was the first to teach openly (φανερῶς), that the Father’s substance was unlike,
ἀνόμοιος, the Son’s. ibid. i. 1. Epiphanius Hær. 76 p.
949. seems to say that the elder Arians held the divine generation in a
sense in which Aetius did not, that is, they were not so consistent and
definite as he. Athan. goes on to mention some of the attempts of the
Arians to find some theory short of orthodoxy, yet short of that
extreme heresy, on the other hand, which they felt ashamed to
avow. | . In truth, Divine
Scripture acquaints us with a double sense of this word:—one
which Moses sets before us in the Law, ‘When ye shall hearken to
the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all His commandments which I
command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the
Lord thy God, ye are children of the Lord your God779
;’ as also in the Gospel, John says,
‘But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the
sons of God780
:’—and the other sense, that
in which Isaac is son of Abraham, and Jacob of Isaac, and the
Patriarchs of Jacob. Now in which of these two senses do they
understand the Son of God that they relate such fables as the
foregoing? for I feel sure they will issue in the same irreligion with
Eusebius and his fellows.
If in the first, which belongs to those who gain
the name by grace from moral improvement, and receive power to become
sons of God (for this is what their predecessors said), then He would
seem to differ from us in nothing; no, nor would He be Only-begotten,
as having obtained the title of Son as others from His virtue. For
granting what they say, that, whereas His qualifications were
fore-known781
, He therefore received grace from the
first, the name, and the glory of the name, from His very first
beginning, still there will be no difference between Him and those who
receive the name after their actions, so long as this is the ground on
which He as others has the character of son. For Adam too, though he
received grace from the first, and upon his creation was at once placed
in paradise, differed in no respect either from Enoch, who was
translated thither after some time from his birth on his pleasing God,
or from the Apostle, who likewise was caught up to Paradise after his
actions; nay, not from him who once was a thief, who on the ground of
his confession, received a promise that he should be forthwith in
paradise.
7. When thus pressed, they will perhaps make an
answer which has brought them into trouble many times already;
“We consider that the Son has this prerogative over others, and
therefore is called Only-begotten, because He alone was brought to be
by God alone, and all other things were created by God through the
Son782
| 782 This is
celebrated as an explanation of the Anomœans. vid. Basil.
contr. Eunom. ii. 20, 21. though Athan. speaks of it as
belonging to the elder Arians. vid. Socr. Hist. i. 6. | .” Now I wonder who it was783
| 783 i.e.
what is your authority? is it not a novel, and therefore
a wrong doctrine? vid. infr. §13. ad Serap. i. 3. Also
Orat. i. §8. ‘Who ever heard such doctrine? or
whence or from whom did they hear it? who, when they
were under catechising, spoke thus to them? If they themselves
confess that they now hear it for the first time, they must grant that
their heresy is alien, and not from the Fathers.’ vid. ii.
§34. and Socr. i. 6. p. 11 c. | that suggested to you so futile and novel an
idea as that the Father alone wrought with His own hand the Son alone,
and that all other things were brought to be by the Son as by an
under-worker. If for the toil’s sake God was content with making
the Son only, instead of making all things at once, this is an
irreligious thought, especially in those who know the words of Esaias,
‘The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the
earth, hungereth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His
understanding784
.’ Rather it is He who gives
strength to the hungry, and through His Word refreshes the labouring785
. Again, it is irreligious to suppose that He
disdained, as if a humble task, to form the creatures Himself which
came after the Son; for there is no pride in that God, who goes down
with Jacob into Egypt, and for Abraham’s sake corrects Abimelek because of Sara, and speaks face to
face with Moses, himself a man, and descends upon Mount Sinai, and by
His secret grace fights for the people against Amalek. However, you are
false even in this assertion, for ‘He made us, and not we
ourselves786
.’ He it is who through His Word
made all things small and great, and we may not divide the creation,
and says this is the Father’s, and this the Son’s, but they
are of one God, who uses His proper Word as a Hand787
| 787 Vid.
infr. §17 Orat. ii. §31. 71. Irenæus calls the
Son and Holy Spirit the Hands of God. Hær. iv.
præf. vid. also Hilar. de Trin. vii. 22. This image
is in contrast to that of instrument, ὄργανον,
which the Arians would use of the Son. vid. Socr. i. 6. p. 11, as
implying He was external to God, whereas the word Hand implies His
consubstantiality with the Father. | ,
and in Him does all things. This God Himself shews us, when He says,
‘All these things hath My Hand made788
;’ while Paul taught us as he had
learned789
| 789 μαθὼν
ἐδίδασκεν, implying the traditional nature of the teaching. And so S.
Paul himself, 1 Cor. xv. 3, vid. for an
illustration, supr. §5. init. also note 2. | , that ‘There is one God, from whom all
things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things790
.’ Thus He, always as now, speaks to the
sun and it rises, and commands the clouds and it rains upon one place;
and where it does not rain, it is dried up. And He bids the earth yield
her fruits, and fashions Jeremias791
in the womb. But
if He now does all this, assuredly at the beginning also He did not
disdain to make all things Himself through the Word; for these are but
parts of the whole.
8. But let us suppose that the other creatures
could not endure to be wrought by the absolute Hand of the
Unoriginate792
and therefore the Son alone was brought
into being by the Father alone, and other things by the Son as an
underworker and assistant, for this is what Asterius the sacrificer793
| 793 Vid.
infr. 20. Orat. i. §31. ii. §§24, 28. 37. 40.
iii. §§2. 60. de Synod §§18. 19. [Prolegg.
ch. ii. §3 (2) a.] | has written, and Arius has transcribed794
| 794 Vid.
also infr. §20. de Synod. §17. | and bequeathed to his own friends, and from
that time they use this form of words, broken reed as it is, being
ignorant, the bewildered men, how brittle it is. For if it was
impossible for things originate to bear the hand of God, and you hold
the Son to be one of their number, how was He too equal to this
formation by God alone? and if a Mediator became necessary that things
originate might come to be, and you hold the Son to be originated, then
must there have been some medium before Him, for His creation; and that
Mediator himself again being a creature, it follows that he too needed
another Mediator for his own constitution. And though we were to devise
another, we must first devise his Mediator, so that we shall never come
to an end. And thus a Mediator being ever in request, never will the
creation be constituted, because nothing originate, as you say, can
bear the absolute hand of the Unoriginate795
| 795 Vid.
infr. §24. Orat. i. §15. fin. ii. §29. Epiph.
Hær. 76. p. 951. | . And
if, on your perceiving the extravagance of this, you begin to say that
the Son, though a creature, was made capable of being made by the
Unoriginate, then it follows that other things also, though originated,
are capable of being wrought immediately by the Unoriginate; for the
Son too is but a creature in your judgment, as all of them. And
accordingly the origination of the Word is superfluous, according to
your irreligious and futile imagination, God being sufficient for the
immediate formation of all things, and all things originate being
capable of sustaining His absolute hand.
These irreligious men then having so little mind
amid their madness, let us see whether this particular sophism be not
even more irrational than the others. Adam was created alone by God
alone through the Word; yet no one would say that Adam had any
prerogative over other men, or was different from those who came after
him, granting that he alone was made and fashioned by God alone, and we
all spring from Adam, and consist according to succession of the race,
so long as he was fashioned from the earth as others, and at first not
being, afterwards came to be.
9. But though we were to allow some prerogative
to the Protoplast as having been deemed worthy of the hand of God,
still it must be one of honour not of nature. For he came of the earth,
as other men; and the hand which then fashioned Adam, is also both now
and ever fashioning and giving entire consistence to those who come
after him. And God Himself declares this to Jeremiah, as I said before;
‘Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee796
;’ and so He says of all, ‘All
those things hath My hand made797
;’ and again by
Isaiah, ‘Thus saith the Lord, thy redeemer, and He that formed
thee from the womb, I am the Lord that maketh all things; that
stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by
Myself798
.’ And David, knowing this, says in the
Psalm, ‘Thy hands have made me and fashioned me799
;’ and he who says in Isaiah,
‘Thus saith the Lord who formed me from the womb to be His
servant800
,’ signifies the same. Therefore, in
respect of nature, he differs nothing from us though he precede us in
time, so long as we all consist and are created by the same hand. If
then these be your thoughts, O Arians, about the Son of God too, that thus He subsists and
came to be, then in your judgment He will differ nothing on the score
of nature from others, so long as He too was not, and came to be, and
the name was by grace united to Him in His creation for His
virtue’s sake. For He Himself is one of those, from what you say,
of whom the Spirit says in the Psalms, ‘He spake the word, and
they were made; He commanded, and they were created801
.’ If so, who was it by whom God gave
command802
| 802 In like
manner, ‘Men were made through the Word, when the Father Himself
willed.’ Orat. i. 63. ‘The Word forms matter
as injoined by, and ministering to, God.’ προσταττόμενος
καὶ
ὑπουργῶν. ibid. ii. §22. contr. Gent. 46. vid. note on
Orat. ii. 22. | for the Son’s creation? for a Word
there must be by whom God gave command, and in whom the works are
created; but you have no other to shew than the Word you deny, unless
indeed you should devise again some new notion.
“Yes,” they will say, “we have
another;” (which indeed I formerly heard Eusebius and his fellows
use), “on this score do we consider that the Son of God has a
prerogative over others, and is called Only-begotten, because He alone
partakes the Father, and all other things partake the Son.” Thus
they weary themselves in changing and in varying their phrases like
colours803
; however, this shall not save them from an
exposure, as men that are of the earth, speaking vainly, and wallowing
in their own conceits as in mire.
10. For if He were called God’s Son, and we
the Son’s sons, their fiction were plausible; but if we too are
said to be sons of that God, of whom He is Son, then we too partake the
Father804
| 804 His
argument is, that if the Son but partook the Father in the sense in
which we partake the Son, then the Son would not impart to us the
Father, but Himself, and would be a separating as well as uniting
medium between the Father and us; whereas He brings us so near to the
Father, that we are the Father’s children, not His, and therefore
He must be Himself one with the Father, or the Father must be in Him
with an incomprehensible completeness. vid. de Synod. §51.
contr. Gent. 46. fin. Hence S. Augustin says, ‘As the
Father has life in Himself, so hath He given also to the Son to have
life in Himself, not by participating, but in Himself. For we
have not life in ourselves, but in our God. But that Father, who has
life in Himself, begat a Son such, as to have life in Himself, not to
become partaker of life, but to be Himself life; and of that life to
make us partakers.’ Serm. 127. de Verb. Evang.
9. | , who says, ‘I have begotten and exalted
children805
.’ For if we did not partake Him,
He had not said, ‘I have begotten;’ but if He Himself begat
us, no other than He is our Father806
| 806 ‘To say God is wholly partaken, is the same as saying
that God begets.’ Orat. i. §16. And in like
manner, our inferior participation involves such sonship as is
vouchsafed to us. | . And, as before,
it matters not, whether the Son has something more and was made first,
but we something less, and were made afterwards, as long as we all
partake, and are called sons, of the same Father807
| 807 And so
in Orat. ii. §19–22. ‘Though the Son surpassed
other things on a comparison, yet He were equally a creature with them;
for even in those things which are of a created nature, we may find
some things surpassing others. Star, for instance, differs from star in
glory, yet it does not follow that some are sovereign, and others
serve, &c.’ ii. §20. And so Gregory Nyssen contr.
Eunom. iii. p. 132 D. Epiph. Hær. 76. p.
970. | .
For the more or less does not indicate a different nature; but attaches
to each according to the practice of virtue; and one is placed over ten
cities, another over five; and some sit on twelve thrones judging the
twelve tribes of Israel; and others hear the words, ‘Come, ye
blessed of My Father,’ and, ‘Well done, good and faithful
servant808
| 808 Matt. xxv. 21, 23,
34. | .’ With such ideas, however, no wonder
they imagine that of such a Son God was not always Father, and such a
Son was not always in being, but was generated from nothing as a
creature, and was not before His generation; for such an one is other
than the True Son of God.
But to persist in such teaching does not consist
with piety809
| 809 i.e.
since it is impossible they can persist in evasions so manifest as
these, nothing is left but to take the other sense of the
word. | , for it is rather the tone of thought
of Sadducees and the Samosatene810
| 810 Paul of
Samosata [see Prolegg. ch. ii. §3 (2)a.] | ; it remains then to
say that the Son of God is so called according to the other sense, in
which Isaac was son of Abraham; for what is naturally begotten from any
one and does not accrue to him from without, that in the nature of
things is a son, and that is what the name implies811
| 811 The
force lies in the word φύσει,
‘naturally,’ which the Council expressed still more
definitely by ‘essence.’ Thus Cyril says, ‘the term
“Son” denotes the essential origin from the Father.’
Dial. 5. p. 573. And Gregory Nyssen, ‘the title
“Son” does not simply express the being from
another’ vid. infra. §19.), but relationship according to
nature. contr. Eunom. ii. p. 91. Again S. Basil says, that Father
is ‘a term of relationship,’ οἰκειώσεως. contr. Eunom. ii. 24. init. And hence he remarks,
that we too are properly, κυρίως,
sons of God, as becoming related to Him through works of the Spirit.
ii. 23. So also Cyril, loc. cit. Elsewhere S. Basil defines
father ‘one who gives to another the origin of being according to
a nature like his own;’ and a son ‘one who possesses the
origin of being from another by generation,’ contr. Eun.
ii. 22. On the other hand, the Arians at the first denied that
‘by nature there was any Son of God.’ Theod. H. E.
i. 3. p. 732. | .
Is then the Son’s generation one of human affection? (for this
perhaps, as their predecessors812
| 812 vid.
Eusebius, in his Letter, supr. p. 73 sq.: also Socr.
Hist. i. 8. Epiphan. Hær. 69. n. 8 and
15. | , they too will be
ready to object in their ignorance;)—in no wise; for God is not
as man, nor men as God. Men were created of matter, and that passible;
but God is immaterial and incorporeal. And if so be the same terms are
used of God and man in divine Scripture, yet the clear-sighted, as Paul
enjoins, will study it, and thereby discriminate, and dispose of what
is written according to the nature of each subject, and avoid any
confusion of sense, so as neither to conceive of the things of God in a
human way, nor to ascribe the things of man to God813
| 813 One of
the characteristic points in Athanasius is his constant attention to
the sense of doctrine, or the meaning of writers, in
preference to the words used. Thus he scarcely uses the symbol
ὁμοούσιον, one in substance, throughout his Orations, and in
the de Synod. acknowledges the Semiarians as brethren. Hence
infr. §18. he says, that orthodox doctrine ‘is revered by
all though expressed in strange language, provided the speaker means
religiously, and wishes to convey by it a religious sense.’ vid.
also §21. He says, that Catholics are able to ‘speak
freely,’ or to expatiate, παρρησιαζόμεθα, ‘out of Divine Scripture.’ Orat. i.
§9. vid. de Sent. Dionys. §20. init. Again: ‘The
devil spoke from Scripture, but was silenced by the Saviour; Paul spoke
from profane writers, yet, being a saint, he has a religious
meaning.’ de Syn. §39, also ad Ep. Æg. 8.
Again, speaking of the apparent contrariety between two Councils,
‘It were unseemly to make the one conflict with the other, for
all their members are fathers; and it were profane to decide that these
spoke well and those ill, for all of them have slept in Christ.’
§43. also §47. Again: ‘Not the phrase, but the meaning
and the religious life, is the recommendation of the faithful.’
ad Ep. Æg. §9. | .
For this were to mix wine with
water814
, and to place upon the altar strange fire
with that which is divine.
11. For God creates, and to create is also
ascribed to men; and God has being, and men are said to be, having
received from God this gift also. Yet does God create as men do? or is
His being as man’s being? Perish the thought; we understand the
terms in one sense of God, and in another of men. For God creates, in
that He calls what is not into being, needing nothing thereunto; but
men work some existing material, first praying, and so gaining the wit
to make, from that God who has framed all things by His proper Word.
And again men, being incapable of self-existence, are enclosed in
place, and consist in the Word of God; but God is self-existent,
enclosing all things, and enclosed by none; within all according to His
own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature815
| 815 Vid.
also Incarn. §17. This contrast is not commonly found in
ecclesiastical writers, who are used to say that God is present
everywhere, in substance as well as by energy or power. S. Clement,
however, expresses himself still more strongly in the same way,
‘In substance far off (for how can the originate come close to
the Unoriginate?), but most close in power, in which the universe is
embosomed.’ Strom. 2. circ. init. but the
parenthesis explains his meaning. Vid. Cyril. Thesaur. 6. p. 44.
The common doctrine of the Fathers is, that God is present everywhere
in substance. Vid. Petav. de Deo, iii. 8. and 9. It may
be remarked, that S. Clement continues ‘neither enclosing
nor enclosed.’ | . As then men create not as God creates, as
their being is not such as God’s being, so men’s generation
is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another816
| 816 In
Almighty God is the perfection and first pattern of what is seen in
shadow in human nature, according to the imperfection of the subject
matter; and this remark applies, as to creation, so to generation.
Athanasius is led to state this more distinctly in another connection
in Orat. i. §21. fin. ‘It belongs to the Godhead
alone, that the Father is properly (κυρίως) Father, and the Son properly (κυρίως) Son; and in Them and Them only does it hold that the
Father is ever Father, and the Son ever Son.’ Accordingly he
proceeds, shortly afterwards, as in the text, to argue, ‘For
God does not make men His pattern, but rather we men, for that God
is properly and alone truly Father of His own Son, are also
called fathers of our own children, for “of Him is every
father-hood in heaven and on earth named,”’ §23. The
Semiarians at Ancyra quote the same text for the same doctrine.
Epiphan. Hær. 73. 5. As do Cyril in Joan. i. p. 24.
Thesaur. 32. p. 281. and Damascene de Fid. Orth. i. 8.
The same parallel, as existing between creation and generation is
insisted on by Isidor. Pel. Ep. iii. 355. Basil contr.
Eun. iv. p. 280 A., Cyril Thesaur. 6. p. 43. Epiph.
Hær. 69. 36. and Gregor. Naz. Orat. 20. 9. who
observes that God creates with a word, Ps. cxlviii.
5,
which evidently transcends human creations. Theodorus Abucara, with the
same object, draws out the parallel of life, ζωὴ, as Athan. that
of being, εἶναι.
Opusc. iii. p. 420–422. | . For the offspring of men are portions of
their fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but
in a state of flux817
| 817 Vid.
de Synod. §51. Orat. i. §15, 16. ῥευστὴ. vid.
Orat. i. §28. Bas. in Eun. ii. 23. ῥύσιν. Bas. in Eun.
ii. 6. Greg. Naz. Orat. 28, 22. Vid. contr. Gentes,
§§41, 42; where Athan. without reference to the Arian
controversy, draws out the contrast between the Godhead and human
nature. | , and composed of
parts; and men lose their substance in begetting, and again they gain
substance from the accession of food. And on this account men in their
time become fathers of many children; but God, being without parts, is
Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither
effluence818
| 818 S.
Cyril, Dial. iv. init. p. 505 E. speaks of the θρυλλουμένη
ἀποῤ& 191·οὴ, and disclaims it, Thesaur. 6. p. 43. Athan.
disclaims it, Expos. §1. Orat. i. §21. So does
Alexander, ap. Theod. Hist. i. 3. p. 743. On the other hand,
Athanasius quotes it in a passage which he adduces from Theognostus,
infr. §25. and from Dionysius, de Sent. D. §23.
and Origen uses it, Periarchon, i. 2. It is derived from
Wisd. vii.
25. | of the Immaterial, nor influx from
without, as among men; and being uncompounded in nature, He is Father
of One Only Son. This is why He is Only-begotten, and alone in the
Father’s bosom, and alone is acknowledged by the Father to be
from Him, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased819
.’ And He too is the Father’s
Word, from which may be understood the impassible and impartitive
nature of the Father, in that not even a human word is begotten with
passion or partition, much less the Word of God820
| 820 The
title ‘Word’ implies the ineffable mode of the Son’s
generation, as distinct from material parallels, vid. Gregory
Nyssen, contr. Eunom. iii. p. 107. Chrysostom in Joan.
Hom. 2. §4. Cyril Alex. Thesaur. 5. p. 37. Also it
implies that there is but One Son. vid. infr. §16.
‘As the Origin is one essence, so its Word and Wisdom is one,
essential and subsisting.’ Orat. iv. 1. fin. | .
Wherefore also He sits, as Word, at the Father’s right hand; for
where the Father is, there also is His Word; but we, as His works,
stand in judgment before Him; and, while He is adored, because He is
Son of the adorable Father, we adore, confessing Him Lord and God,
because we are creatures and other than He.
12. The case being thus, let who will among them
consider the matter, so that one may abash them by the following
question; Is it right to say that what is God’s offspring and
proper to Him is out of nothing? or is it reasonable in the very idea,
that what is from God has accrued to Him, that a man should dare to say
that the Son is not always? For in this again the generation of the Son
exceeds and transcends the thoughts of man, that we become fathers of
our own children in time, since we ourselves first were not and then
came into being; but God, in that He ever is, is ever Father of the
Son821
| 821 ‘Man,’ says S. Cyril, ‘inasmuch as he had a
beginning of being, also has of necessity a beginning of begetting, as
what is from him is a thing generate, but.…if God’s essence
transcend time, or origin, or interval, His generation too will
transcend these; nor does it deprive the Divine Nature of the power of
generating, that it doth not this in time. For other than human is the
manner of divine generation; and together with God’s existing is
His generating implied, and the Son was in Him by generation, nor did
His generation precede His existence, but He was always, and that by
generation.’ Thesaur. v. p. 35. | . And the origination of mankind is brought home to us from things
that are parallel; but, since ‘no one knoweth the Son but the
Father, and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever
the Son will reveal Him822
,’ therefore the
sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed Him, have given us a
certain image from things visible, saying, ‘Who is the brightness
of His glory, and the Expression of His Person823
;’ and again, ‘For with Thee is
the well of life, and in Thy light shall we see light824
;’ and when the Word chides Israel, He
says, ‘Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom825
;’ and this Fountain it is which says,
‘They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters826
| 826 Jer. ii. 13. Vid. infr.
passim. All these titles, ‘Word, Wisdom, Light’
&c., serve to guard the title ‘Son’ from any notions of
parts or dimensions, e.g. ‘He is not composed of parts, but being
impassible and single, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the
Son…for…the Word and Wisdom is neither creature, nor part
of Him Whose Word He is, nor an offspring passibly begotten.’
Orat. i. §28. | .’ And mean indeed and very dim is the
illustration827
compared with what we desiderate; but
yet it is possible from it to understand something above man’s
nature, instead of thinking the Son’s generation to be on a level
with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was
not, so that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that
the Son was not before His generation? or who is capable of separating
the radiance from the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void
of life, that he should madly say, ‘The Son is from
nothing,’ who says, ‘I am the life828
,’ or ‘alien to the Father’s
essence,’ who, says, ‘He that hath seen Me, hath seen the
Father829
?’ for the sacred writers wishing us
thus to understand, have given these illustrations; and it is unseemly
and most irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form
ideas concerning our Lord from others which are neither in Scripture,
nor have any religious bearing.
13. Therefore let them tell us, from what teacher
or by what tradition they derived these notions concerning the Saviour?
“We have read,” they will say, “in the Proverbs,
‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works830
;’” this Eusebius and his fellows
used to insist on831
| 831 Eusebius of Nicomedia quotes it in his Letter to Paulinus, ap.
Theodor. Hist. i. 5. And Eusebius of Cæsarea, Demonstr.
Evang. v. 1. | , and you write me
word, that the present men also, though overthrown and confuted by an
abundance of arguments, still were putting about in every quarter this
passage, and saying that the Son was one of the creatures, and
reckoning Him with things originated. But they seem to me to have a
wrong understanding of this passage also; for it has a religious and
very orthodox sense, which had they understood, they would not have
blasphemed the Lord of glory. For on comparing what has been above
stated with this passage, they will find a great difference between
them832
| 832 i.e.
‘Granting that the primâ facie impression of this
text is in favour of our Lord’s being a creature, yet so many
arguments have been already brought, and may be added, against His
creation, that we must interpret this text by them. It cannot mean that
our Lord was simply created, because we have already shewn that
He is not external to His Father.’ | . For what man of right understanding does not
perceive, that what are created and made are external to the maker; but
the Son, as the foregoing argument has shewn, exists not externally,
but from the Father who begat Him? for man too both builds a house and
begets a son, and no one would reverse things, and say that the house
or the ship were begotten by the builder833
| 833 Serap. 2, 6. Sent. Dion. §4. | , but
the son was created and made by him; nor again that the house was an
image of the maker, but the son unlike him who begat him; but rather he
will confess that the son is an image of the father, but the house a
work of art, unless his mind be disordered, and he beside himself.
Plainly, divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of
everything, says through Moses, of the creatures, ‘In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth834
;’ but of the Son it introduces not
another, but the Father Himself saying, ‘I have begotten Thee
from the womb before the morning star835
;’ and
again, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee836
.’ And the Lord says of Himself in the
Proverbs, ‘Before all the hills He begets me837
;’ and concerning things originated and
created John speaks, ‘All things were made by Him838
;’ but preaching of the Lord, he says,
‘The Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He
declared Him839
.’ If then son, therefore not
creature; if creature, not son; for great is the difference between
them, and son and creature cannot be the same, unless His essence be
considered to be at once from God, and external to God.
14. ‘Has then the passage no
meaning?’ for this, like a swarm of gnats, they are droning about
us840
| 840 περιβομβοῦσιν. So in ad Afros. 5. init. And Sent. D.
§19. περιέρχονται
περιβομβοῦντες. And Gregory Nyssen. contr. Eun. viii. p. 234
C. ὡς ἂν
τοὺς
ἀπείρους
ταῖς
πλατωνικαῖς
καλλιφωνίαι
περιβομβήσειεν. vid. also περιέρχονται
ὡς οἱ
κάνθαροι. Orat. iii. fin. | . No surely, it is not without meaning, but
has a very apposite one; for it is true to say that the Son was created
too, but this took place when He became man; for creation belongs to man. And any one may find this sense
duly given in the divine oracles, who, instead of accounting their
study a secondary matter, investigates the time and characters841
| 841 πρόσωπα. vid. Orat. i. §54. ii. §8. Sent. D. 4.
not persons, but characters; which must also be
considered the meaning of the word, contr. Apoll. ii. 2.
and 10; though it there approximates (even in phrase, οὐκ ἐν
διαιρέσεῖ
προσώπων) to its ecclesiastical use, which seems to have been later. Yet
persona occurs in Tertull. in Prax. 27; it may be questioned,
however, whether in any genuine Greek treatise till the
Apollinarians. | , and the object, and thus studies and ponders
what he reads. Now as to the season spoken of, he will find for certain
that, whereas the Lord always is, at length in fulness of the ages He
became man; and whereas He is Son of God, He became Son of man also.
And as to the object he will understand, that, wishing to annul our
death, He took on Himself a body from the Virgin Mary; that by offering
this unto the Father a sacrifice for all, He might deliver us all, who
by fear of death were all our life through subject to bondage842
. And as to the character, it is indeed the
Saviour’s, but is said of Him when He took a body and said,
‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works843
.’ For as it properly belongs to
God’s Son to be everlasting. and in the Father’s bosom, so
on His becoming man, the words befitted Him, ‘The Lord created
me.’ For then it is said of Him, as also that He hungered, and
thirsted, and asked where Lazarus lay, and suffered, and rose again844
| 844 Sent. D. 9. Orat. 3,
§§26–41. | . And as, when we hear of Him as Lord and God
and true Light, we understand Him as being from the Father, so on
hearing, ‘The Lord created,’ and ‘Servant,’ and
‘He suffered,’ we shall justly ascribe this, not to the
Godhead, for it is irrelevant, but we must interpret it by that flesh
which He bore for our sakes: for to it these things are proper, and
this flesh was none other’s than the Word’s. And if we wish
to know the object attained by this, we shall find it to be as follows:
that the Word was made flesh in order to offer up this body for all,
and that we partaking of His Spirit, might be deified845
| 845 [See
de Incar. §54. 3, and note.] | ,
a gift which we could not otherwise have gained than by His clothing
Himself in our created body846
, for hence we derive
our name of “men of God” and “men in Christ.”
But as we, by receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper
substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and bearing a body, was
no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of the body,
but rather deified it and rendered it immortal847
| 847 Cf.
Orat. ii. 6. [See also de Incar. §17.] | .E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
