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| Subject Continued. Third proof of the Son's eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as the Creator; One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father to be immutable and ever the same.
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Chapter VI.—Subject Continued. Third proof of the Son’s
eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as
the Creator; One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image.
If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father
also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the
Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the
Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of
the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received
from the Father to be immutable and ever the same.
17. This is of itself a sufficient refutation of
the Arian heresy; however, its heterodoxy will appear also from the
following:—If God be Maker and Creator, and create His works
through the Son, and we cannot regard things which come to be, except
as being through the Word, is it not blasphemous, God being Maker, to
say, that His Framing Word and His Wisdom once was not? it is the same
as saying, that God is not Maker, if He had not His proper Framing Word
which is from Him, but that that by which He frames, accrues to Him
from without1936
| 1936 de
Decr. 25, note 2. | , and is alien from Him, and unlike in
essence. Next, let them tell us this,—or rather learn from it how
irreligious they are in saying, ‘Once He was not,’ and,
‘He was not before His generation;’—for if the Word
is not with the Father from everlasting, the Triad is not everlasting;
but a Monad was first, and afterwards by addition it became a Triad;
and so as time went on, it seems what we know concerning God grew and
took shape1937
. And further, if the Son is not proper
offspring of the Father’s essence, but of nothing has come to be,
then of nothing the Triad consists, and once there was not a Triad, but
a Monad; and a Triad once with deficiency, and then complete;
deficient, before the Son was originated, complete when He had come to
be; and henceforth a thing originated is reckoned with the Creator, and
what once was not has divine worship and glory with Him who was ever1938
. Nay, what is more serious still, the Triad
is discovered to be unlike Itself, consisting of strange and alien
natures and essences. And this, in other words, is saying, that the
Triad has an originated consistence. What sort of a religion then is
this, which is not even like itself, but is in process of completion as
time goes on, and is now not thus, and then again thus? For probably it
will receive some fresh accession, and so on without limit, since at
first and at starting it took its consistence by way of accessions. And
so undoubtedly it may decrease on the contrary, for what is added
plainly admits of being subtracted.
18. But this is not so: perish the thought; the
Triad is not originated; but there is an eternal and one Godhead in a
Triad, and there is one Glory of
the Holy Triad. And you presume to divide it into different natures;
the Father being eternal, yet you say of the Word which is seated by
Him, ‘Once He was not;’ and, whereas the Son is seated by
the Father, yet you think to place Him far from Him. The Triad is
Creator and Framer, and you fear not to degrade It to things which are
from nothing; you scruple not to equal servile beings to the nobility
of the Triad, and to rank the King, the Lord of Sabaoth with subjects1939
. Cease this confusion of things
unassociable, or rather of things which are not with Him who is. Such
statements do not glorify and honour the Lord, but the reverse; for he
who dishonours the Son, dishonours also the Father. For if the doctrine
of God is now perfect in a Triad, and this is the true and only
Religion, and this is the good and the truth, it must have been always
so, unless the good and the truth be something that came after, and the
doctrine of God is completed by additions. I say, it must have been
eternally so; but if not eternally, not so at present either, but at
present so, as you suppose it was from the beginning,—I mean, not
a Triad now. But such heretics no Christian would bear; it belongs to
Greeks, to introduce an originated Triad, and to level It with things
originate; for these do admit of deficiencies and additions; but the
faith of Christians acknowledges the blessed Triad as unalterable and
perfect and ever what It was, neither adding to It what is more, nor
imputing to It any loss (for both ideas are irreligious), and therefore
it dissociates It from all things generated, and it guards as
indivisible and worships the unity of the Godhead Itself; and shuns the
Arian blasphemies, and confesses and acknowledges that the Son was
ever; for He is eternal, as is the Father, of whom He is the Eternal
Word,—to which subject let us now return again.
19. If God be, and be called, the Fountain of
wisdom and life—as He says by Jeremiah, ‘They have forsaken
Me the Fountain of living waters1940
;’ and
again, ‘A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place
of our sanctuary; O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee
shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the
earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living
waters1941
;’ and in the book of Baruch it
is written, ‘Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom1942
,’—this implies that life and
wisdom are not foreign to the Essence of the Fountain, but are proper
to It, nor were at any time without existence, but were always. Now the
Son is all this, who says, ‘I am the Life1943
,’ and, ‘I Wisdom dwell with
prudence1944
.’ Is it not then irreligious to
say, ‘Once the Son was not?’ for it is all one with saying,
‘Once the Fountain was dry, destitute of Life and Wisdom.’
But a fountain it would then cease to be; for what begetteth not from
itself, is not a fountain1945
. What a load of
extravagance! for God promises that those who do His will shall be as a
fountain which the water fails not, saying by Isaiah the prophet,
‘And the Lord shall satisfy thy soul in drought, and make thy
bones fat; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring
of water, whose waters fail not1946
.’ And
yet these, whereas God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to
insult Him as barren and void of His proper Wisdom. But their doctrine
is false; truth witnessing that God is the eternal Fountain of His
proper Wisdom; and, if the Fountain be eternal, the Wisdom also must
needs be eternal. For in It were all things made, as David says in the
Psalm, ‘In Wisdom hast Thou made them all1947
;’ and Solomon says, ‘The Lord by
Wisdom hath formed the earth, by understanding hath He established the
heavens1948
.’ And this Wisdom is the Word,
and by Him, as John says, ‘all things were made,’ and
‘without Him was made not one thing1949
| 1949 John i. 3. See
Westcott’s additional note on the passage.] | .’ And this Word is Christ; for
‘there is One God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we
for Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we
through Him1950
.’ And if all things are through
Him, He Himself is not to be reckoned with that ‘all.’ For
he who dares1951
| 1951 Vid.
Petav. de Trin. ii. 12, §4. | to call Him, through whom are things,
one of that ‘all,’ surely will have like speculations
concerning God, from whom are all. But if he shrinks from this as
unseemly, and excludes God from that all, it is but consistent that he
should also exclude from that all the Only-Begotten Son, as being
proper to the Father’s essence. And, if He be not one of the
all1952
, it is sin to say concerning Him, ‘He
was not,’ and ‘He was not before His generation.’
Such words may be used of the creatures; but as to the Son, He is such
as the Father is, of whose essence He is proper Offspring, Word, and
Wisdom1953
. For this is proper to the Son, as
regards the Father, and this shews that the Father is proper to the
Son; that we may neither say that God was ever without Word1954
| 1954 ἄλογον. Vid. note
on de Decr. §§1, 15, where other instances are given
from Athan. and Dionysius of Rome; vid. also Orat. iv. 2, 4.
Sent. D. 23. Origen, supr. p. 48. Athenag. Leg. 10. Tat.
contr. Græc. 5. Theoph. ad. Autol. ii. 10. Hipp.
contr. Noet. 10. Nyssen. contr. Eunom. vii. p. 215. viii.
pp. 230, 240. Orat, Catech. 1. Naz. Orat. 29. 17 fin.
Cyril. Thesaur. xiv. p. 145 (vid. Petav. de Trin. vi. 9).
It must not be supposed from these instances that the Fathers meant
that our Lord was literally what is called the attribute of
reason or wisdom in the Divine Essence, or in other words, that He was
God merely viewed as He is wise; which would be a kind of Sabellianism.
But, whereas their opponents said that He was but called Word
and Wisdom after the attribute (vid. de Syn. 15, note),
they said that such titles marked, not only a typical resemblance to
the attribute, but so full a correspondence and (as it were)
coincidence in nature with it, that whatever relation that
attribute had to God, such in kind had the Son;—that the
attribute was His symbol, and not His mere archetype; that our Lord was
eternal and proper to God, because that attribute was, which was His
title, vid. Ep. Æg. 14, that our Lord was that Essential
Reason and Wisdom,—not by which the Father is wise,
but without which the Father was not wise;—not,
that is, in the way of a formal cause, but in fact. Or, whereas
the Father Himself is Reason and Wisdom, the Son is the necessary
result of that Reason and Wisdom, so that, to say that there was no
Word, would imply there was no Divine Reason; just as a radiance
implies a light; or, as Petavius remarks, l.c. quoting the words which
follow shortly after in the text, the eternity of the Original implies
the eternity of the Image; τῆς
ὑποστάσεως
ὑπαρχούσης,
πάντως εὐθὺς
εἶναι δεῖ τὸν
χαρακτῆρα
καὶ τὴν
εἰκόνα
ταύτης,
§20. vid. also infr. §31, de Decr. §13, p. 21,
§§20, 23, pp. 35, 40. Theod. H. E. i. 3. p.
737. | , nor that the Son was non-existent. For wherefore a Son, if not
from Him? or wherefore Word and Wisdom, if not ever proper to Him?
20. When then was God without that which is
proper to Him? or how can a man consider that which is proper, as
foreign and alien in essence? for other things, according to the nature
of things originate, are without likeness in essence with the Maker;
but are external to Him, made by the Word at His grace and will, and
thus admit of ceasing to be, if it so pleases Him who made them1955
| 1955 This
was but the opposite aspect of the tenet of our Lord’s
consubstantiality or eternal generation. For if He came into being at
the will of God, by the same will He might cease to be; but if His
existence is unconditional and necessary, as God’s attributes
might be, then as He had no beginning, so can He have no end; for He is
in, and one with, the Father, who has neither beginning nor end. On the
question of the ‘will of God’ as it affects the doctrine,
vid. Orat. iii. §59, &c. | ; for such is the nature of things
originate1956
. But as to what is proper to the
Father’s essence (for this we have already found to be the Son),
what daring is it in irreligion to say that ‘This comes from
nothing,’ and that ‘It was not before generation,’
but was adventitious1957
| 1957 De
Decr. 22, note 9. | , and can at some
time cease to be again? Let a person only dwell upon this thought, and
he will discern how the perfection and the plenitude of the
Father’s essence is impaired by this heresy; however, he will see
its unseemliness still more clearly, if he considers that the Son is
the Image and Radiance of the Father, and Expression, and Truth. For
if, when Light exists, there be withal its Image, viz. Radiance, and, a
Subsistence existing, there be of it the entire Expression, and, a
Father existing, there be His Truth (viz. the Son); let them consider
what depths of irreligion they fall into, who make time the measure of
the Image and Form of the Godhead. For if the Son was not before His
generation, Truth was not always in God, which it were a sin to say;
for, since the Father was, there was ever in Him the Truth, which is
the Son, who says, ‘I am the Truth1958
.’ And the Subsistence existing, of
course there was forthwith its Expression and Image; for God’s
Image is not delineated from without1959
| 1959 Athan. argues from the very name Image for our Lord’s
eternity. An Image, to be really such, must be an expression from the
Original, not an external and detached imitation. vid. supr. note 10,
infr. §26. Hence S. Basil, ‘He is an Image not made with the
hand, or a work of art, but a living Image,’ &c. vid. also
contr. Eunom. ii. 16, 17. Epiph. Hær. 76. 3. Hilar.
Trin. vii. 41 fin. Origen observes that man, on the contrary, is
an example of an external or improper image of God. Periarch. i.
2. §6. It might have been more direct to have argued from the name
of Image to our Lord’s consubstantiality rather than eternity,
as, e.g. S. Gregory Naz. ‘He is Image as one in essence,
ὁμοούσιον,…for this is the nature of an image, to be a copy of
the archetype.’ Orat. 30. 20. vid. also de Decr.
§§20, 23, but for whatever reason Athan. avoids the
word ὁμοούσιον
in these Discourses. S. Chrys. on Col. i.
15. | , but God
Himself hath begotten it; in which seeing Himself, He has delight, as
the Son Himself says, ‘I was His delight1960
.’ When then did the Father not see
Himself in His own Image? or when had He not delight, that a man should
dare to say, ‘the Image is out of nothing,’ and ‘The
Father had not delight before the Image was originated?’ and how
should the Maker and Creator see Himself in a created and originated
essence? for such as is the Father, such must be the Image.
21. Proceed we then to consider the attributes of
the Father, and we shall come to know whether this Image is really His.
The Father is eternal, immortal, powerful, light, King, Sovereign, God,
Lord, Creator, and Maker. These attributes must be in the Image, to
make it true that he ‘that hath seen’ the Son ‘hath
seen the Father1961
.’ If the Son
be not all this, but, as the Arians consider, originate, and not
eternal, this is not a true Image of the Father, unless indeed they
give up shame, and go on to say, that the title of Image, given to the
Son, is not a token of a similar essence1962
| 1962 ὁμοίας
οὐσίας. And so
§20 init. ὅμοιον
κατ᾽
οὐσίαν,
and ὅμοιος τῆς
οὐσίας,
§26. ὅμοιος
κατ᾽
οὐσίαν, iii.
26. and ὅμοιος κατὰ
τὴν οὐσίαν
τοῦ πατρός. Ep. Æg. 17. Also Alex. Ep. Encycl. 2.
Considering what he says in the de Syn. §38, &c., in
controversy with the semi-Arians a year or two later, this use of their
formula, in preference to the ὁμοούσιον (vid. foregoing note), deserves our attention. | ,
but His name1963
only. But this, on the other hand, O
ye enemies of Christ, is not an Image, nor is it an Expression. For
what is the likeness of what is out of nothing to Him who brought what
was nothing into being? or how can that which is not, be like Him that
is, being short of Him in once not being, and in its having its place
among things originate? However, such the Arians wishing Him to be,
devised for themselves arguments such as this;—‘If the Son
is the Father’s offspring and Image, and is like in all things1964
| 1964 De
Syn. 27 (5) note 1, and infr. §40. | to the Father, then it necessarily holds that as He is begotten, so He
begets, and He too becomes father of a son. And again, he who is
begotten from Him, begets in his turn, and so on without limit; for
this is to make the Begotten like Him that begat Him.’ Authors of
blasphemy, verily, are these foes of God! who, sooner than confess that
the Son is the Father’s Image1965
| 1965 The
objection is this, that, if our Lord be the Father’s Image, He
ought to resemble Him in being a Father. S. Athanasius answers that God
is not as man; with us a son becomes a father because our nature
is ῥευστὴ,
transitive and without stay, ever shifting and passing on into new
forms and relations; but that God is perfect and ever the same, what He
is once that He continues to be; God the Father remains Father, and God
the Son remains Son. Moreover men become fathers by detachment and
transmission, and what is received is handed on in a succession;
whereas the Father, by imparting Himself wholly, begets the Son: and a
perfect nativity finds its termination in itself. The Son has not a
Son, because the Father has not a Father. Thus the Father is the only
true Father, and the Son alone true Son; the Father only a Father, the
Son only a Son; being really in their Persons what human fathers are
but by office, character, accident, and name; vid. De Decr. 11,
note 6. And since the Father is unchangeable as Father, in nothing does
the Son more fulfil the idea of a perfect Image than in being
unchangeable too. Thus S. Cyril also, Thesaur. 10. p. 124. And
this perhaps may illustrate a strong and almost startling implication
of some of the Greek Fathers, that the First Person in the Holy
Trinity, is not God [in virtue of His Fatherhood]. E.g.
εἰ δὲ
θεὸς ὁ υἱ& 232·ς,
οὐκ ἐπεὶ υἱ&
231·ς· ὁμοίως
καὶ ὁ πατὴρ,
οὐκ ἐπεὶ
πατὴρ, θεός·
ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεὶ
οὐσία τοιάδε,
εἷς ἐστὶ
πατὴρ καὶ ὁ
υἱ& 232·ς
θεός. Nyssen. t. i.
p. 915. vid. Petav. de Deo i. 9. §13. Should it be asked,
‘What is the Father if not God?’ it is enough to answer,
‘the Father.’ Men differ from each other as being
individuals, but the characteristic difference between Father and Son
is, not that they are individuals, but that they are Father and
Son. In these extreme statements it must be ever borne in mind that we
are contemplating divine things according to our notions. not in
fact: i.e. speaking of the Almighty Father, as such;
there being no real separation between His Person and His Substance. It
may be added, that, though theologians differ in their decisions, it
would appear that our Lord is not the Image of the Father’s
person, but of the Father’s substance; in other words, not of the
Father considered as Father, but considered as God. That is, God the
Son is like and equal to God the Father, because they are both the same
God. De Syn. 49. note 4, also next note. | , conceive
material and earthly ideas concerning the Father Himself, ascribing to
Him severings and1966
| 1966 Ep. Eus. 7, de Decr. 11, note 8. | effluences and
influences. If then God be as man, let Him become also a parent as man,
so that His Son should be father of another, and so in succession one
from another, till the series they imagine grows into a multitude of
gods. But if God be not as man, as He is not, we must not impute to Him
the attributes of man. For brutes and men, after a Creator has begun
them, are begotten by succession; and the son, having been begotten of
a father who was a son, becomes accordingly in his turn a father to a
son, in inheriting from his father that by which he himself has come to
be. Hence in such instances there is not, properly speaking, either
father or son, nor do the father and the son stay in their respective
characters, for the son himself becomes a father, being son of his
father, but father of his son. But it is not so in the Godhead; for not
as man is God; for the Father is not from a father; therefore doth He
not beget one who shall become a father; nor is the Son from effluence
of the Father, nor is He begotten from a father that was begotten;
therefore neither is He begotten so as to beget. Thus it belongs to the
Godhead alone, that the Father is properly1967
| 1967 κυρίως,
de Decr. 11, note 6. Elsewhere Athan. says, ‘The Father
being one and only is Father of a Son one and only; and in the instance
of Godhead only have the names Father and Son stay, and are ever; for
of men if any one be called father, yet he has been son of another; and
if he be called son, yet is he called father of another; so that in the
case of men the names father and son do not properly, κυρίως, hold.’ ad Serap. i. 16. also ibid. iv. 4 fin.
and 6. vid. also κυρίως,
Greg. Naz. Orat. 29. 5. ἀληθῶς,
Orat. 25, 16. ὄντως, Basil. contr.
Eunom. i. 5. p. 215. |
father, and the Son properly son, and in Them, and Them only, does it
hold that the Father is ever Father and the Son ever Son.
22. Therefore he who asks why the Son is not to
beget a son, must inquire why the Father had not a father. But both
suppositions are unseemly and full of impiety. For as the Father is
ever Father and never could become Son, so the Son is ever Son and
never could become Father. For in this rather is He shewn to be the
Father’s Expression and Image, remaining what He is and not
changing, but thus receiving from the Father to be one and the same. If
then the Father change, let the Image change; for so is the Image and
Radiance in its relation towards Him who begat It. But if the Father is
unalterable, and what He is that He continues, necessarily does the
Image also continue what He is, and will not alter. Now He is Son from
the Father; therefore He will not become other than is proper to the
Father’s essence. Idly then have the foolish ones devised this
objection also, wishing to separate the Image from the Father, that
they might level the Son with things originated. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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