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| Objections Continued. Whether we may decide the question by the parallel of human sons, which are born later than their parents. No, for the force of the analogy lies in the idea of connaturality. Time is not involved in the idea of Son, but is adventitious to it, and does not attach to God, because He is without parts and passions. The titles Word and Wisdom guard our thoughts of Him and His Son from this misconception. God not a Father, as a Creator, in posse from eternity, because creation does not relate to the essence of God, as generation does.
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Chapter VIII.—Objections
Continued. Whether we may decide the question by the parallel
of human sons, which are born later than their parents. No, for the
force of the analogy lies in the idea of connaturality. Time is not
involved in the idea of Son, but is adventitious to it, and does not
attach to God, because He is without parts and passions. The titles
Word and Wisdom guard our thoughts of Him and His Son from this
misconception. God not a Father, as a Creator, in posse from eternity,
because creation does not relate to the essence of God, as generation
does.
26. (continued). Nor is answer needful to their other very simple and
foolish inquiry, which they put to silly women; or none besides that
which has been already given, namely, that it is not suitable to
measure divine generation by the nature of men. However, that as before
they may pass judgment on themselves, it is well to meet them on the
same ground, thus:—Plainly, if they inquire of parents concerning
their son, let them consider whence is the child which is begotten.
For, granting the parent had not a
son before his begetting, still, after having him, he had him, not as
external or as foreign, but as from himself, and proper to his essence
and his exact image, so that the former is beheld in the latter, and
the latter is contemplated in the former. If then they assume from
human examples that generation implies time, why not from the same
infer that it implies the Natural and the Proper1983
| 1983 Supr.
de Decr. 6. The question was, What was that sense of Son
which would apply to the Divine Nature? The Catholics said that its
essential meaning could apply, viz. consubstantiality, whereas
the point of posteriority to the Father depended on a condition,
time, which could not exist in the instance of God. ib. 10. The
Arians on the other hand said, that to suppose a true Son, was to think
of God irreverently, as implying division, change, &c. The
Catholics replied that the notion of materiality was quite as foreign
from the Divine Essence as time, and as the Divine Sonship was eternal,
so was it also clear both of imperfection or extension. | , instead of extracting serpent-like from the
earth only what turns to poison? Those who ask of parents, and say,
‘Had you a son before you begot him?’ should add,
‘And if you had a son, did you purchase him from without as a
house or any other possession?’ And then you would be answered,
‘He is not from without, but from myself. For things which are
from without are possessions, and pass from one to another; but my son
is from me, proper and similar to my essence, not become mine from
another, but begotten of me; wherefore I too am wholly in him, while I
remain myself what I am1984
| 1984 It is
from expressions such as this that the Greek Fathers have been accused
of tritheism. The truth is, every illustration, as being incomplete on
one or other side of it, taken by itself, tends to heresy. The title
Son by itself suggests a second God, as the title Word a mere
attribute, and the title Instrument a creature. All heresies are
partial views of the truth, and are wrong, not so much in what they
say, as in what they deny. The truth, on the other hand, is a positive
and comprehensive doctrine, and in consequence necessarily mysterious
and open to misconception. vid. de Syn. 41, note 1. When Athan,
implies that the Eternal Father is in the Son, though remaining what He
is, as a man in his child, he is intent only upon the point of the
Son’s connaturality and equality, which the Arians denied. Cf.
Orat. iii. §5; Ps.-Ath. Dial. i. (Migne xxviii. 1144
C.). S. Cyril even seems to deny that each individual man may be
considered a separate substance except as the Three Persons are such
(Dial. i. p. 409); and S. Gregory Nyssen is led to say that,
strictly speaking, the abstract man, which is predicated of
separate individuals, is still one, and this with a view of
illustrating the Divine Unity. ad Ablab. t. 2. p. 449. vid.
Petav. de Trin. iv. 9. | .’ For so it
is; though the parent be distinct in time, as being man, who himself
has come to be in time, yet he too would have had his child ever
coexistent with him, but that his nature was a restraint and made it
impossible. For Levi too was already in the loins of his
great-grandfather, before his own actual generation, or that of his
grandfather. When then the man comes to that age at which nature
supplies the power, immediately, with nature, unrestrained, he becomes
father of the son from himself.
27. Therefore, if on asking parents about
children, they get for answer, that children which are by nature are
not from without, but from their parents, let them confess in like
manner concerning the Word of God, that He is simply from the Father.
And if they make a question of the time, let them say what is to
restrain God—for it is necessary to prove their irreligion on the
very ground on which their scoff is made—let them tell us, what
is there to restrain God from being always Father of the Son; for that
what is begotten must be from its father is undeniable. Moreover, they
will pass judgment on themselves in attributing1985
| 1985 [But
see Or. iii. 65, note 2.] |
such things to God, if, as they questioned women on the subject of
time, so they inquire of the sun concerning its radiance, and of the
fountain concerning its issue. They will find that these, though an
offspring, always exist with those things from which they are. And if
parents, such as these, have in common with their children nature and
duration, why, if they suppose God inferior to things that come to be1986
, do they not openly say out their own
irreligion? But if they do not dare to say this openly, and the Son is
confessed to be, not from without, but a natural offspring from the
Father, and that there is nothing which is a restraint to God (for not
as man is He, but more than the sun, or rather the God of the sun), it
follows that the Word is from Him and is ever co-existent with Him,
through whom also the Father caused that all things which were not
should be. That then the Son comes not of nothing but is eternal and
from the Father, is certain even from the nature of the case; and the
question of the heretics to parents exposes their perverseness; for
they confess the point of nature, and now have been put to shame on the
point of time.
28. As we said above, so now we repeat, that the
divine generation must not be compared to the nature of men, nor the
Son considered to be part of God, nor the generation to imply any
passion whatever; God is not as man; for men beget passibly, having a
transitive nature, which waits for periods by reason of its weakness.
But with God this cannot be; for He is not composed of parts, but being
impassible and simple, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the
Son. This again is strongly evidenced and proved by divine Scripture.
For the Word of God is His Son, and the Son is the Father’s Word
and Wisdom; and Word and Wisdom is neither creature nor part of Him
whose Word He is, nor an offspring passibly begotten. Uniting then the
two titles, Scripture speaks of
‘Son,’ in order to herald the natural and true offspring of
His essence; and, on the other hand, that none may think of the
Offspring humanly, while signifying His essence, it also calls Him
Word, Wisdom, and Radiance; to teach us that the generation was
impassible, and eternal, and worthy of God.1987
| 1987 This
is a view familiar to the Fathers, viz. that in this consists our
Lord’s Sonship, that He is the Word, or as S. Augustine says,
Christum ideo Filium quia Verbum. Aug. Ep. 120. 11. Cf. de
Decr. §17. ‘If I speak of Wisdom, I speak of His
offspring;’ Theoph. ad Autolyc. i. 3. ‘The Word, the
genuine Son of Mind;’ Clem. Protrept. p. 58. Petavius
discusses this subject accurately with reference to the distinction
between Divine Generation and Divine Procession. de Trin. vii.
14. |
What affection then, or what part of the Father is the Word and the
Wisdom and the Radiance? So much may be impressed even on these men of
folly; for as they asked women concerning God’s Son, so1988
let them inquire of men concerning the Word,
and they will find that the word which they put forth is neither an
affection of them nor a part of their mind. But if such be the word of
men, who are passible and partitive, why speculate they about passions
and parts in the instance of the immaterial and indivisible God, that
under pretence of reverence1989
| 1989 Heretics have frequently assigned reverence as the cause of their
opposition to the Church; and if even Arius affected it, the plea may
be expected in any other. ‘O stultos et impios metus,’ says
S. Hilary, ‘et irreligiosam de Deo sollicitudinem.’ de
Trin. iv. 6. It was still more commonly professed in regard to the
Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. Cf. Acta Archelai [Routh.
Rell. v. 169]. August. contr. Secund. 9, contr.
Faust. xi. 3. As the Manichees denied our Lord a body, so the
Apollinarians denied Him a rational soul, still under pretence of
reverence because, as they said, the soul was necessarily sinful.
Leontius makes this their main argument, ὁ νοῦς
ἁμαρτητικός
ἐστι. de Sect. iv.
p. 507. vid. also Greg. Naz. Ep. 101. ad Cledon. p. 89;
Athan. in Apoll. i. 2. 14. Epiph. Ancor. 79. 80. Athan.,
&c., call the Apollinarian doctrine Manichæan in consequence.
vid. in Apoll. ii. 8. 9. &c. Again, the Eranistes in
Theodoret, who advocates a similar doctrine, will not call our Lord
man. Eranist. ii. p. 83. Eutyches, on the other hand,
would call our Lord man, but refused to admit His human
nature, and still with the same profession. Leon. Ep. 21.
1 fin. ‘Forbid it,’ he says at Constantinople, ‘that
I should say that the Christ was of two natures, or should discuss the
nature, φυσιολογεῖν, of my God.’ Concil. t. 2. p. 157 [Act.
prima conc. Chalc. t. iv. 1001 ed. Col.] A modern argument for
Universal Restitution takes a like form; ‘Do not we shrink
from the notion of another’s being sentenced to eternal
punishment; and are we more merciful than God?’ vid. Matt. xvi. 22,
23. | they may deny the
true and natural generation of the Son? Enough was said above to shew
that the offspring from God is not an affection; and now it has been
shewn in particular that the Word is not begotten according to
affection. The same may be said of Wisdom; God is not as man; nor must
they here think humanly of Him. For, whereas men are capable of wisdom,
God partakes in nothing, but is Himself the Father of His own Wisdom,
of which whoso partake are given the name of wise. And this Wisdom too
is not a passion, nor a part, but an Offspring proper to the Father.
Wherefore He is ever Father, nor is the character of Father
adventitious to God, lest He seem alterable; for if it is good that He
be Father, but has not ever been Father, then good has not ever been in
Him.
29. But, observe, say they, God was always a
Maker, nor is the power of framing adventitious to Him; does it follow
then, that, because He is the Framer of all, therefore His works also
are eternal, and is it wicked to say of them too, that they were not
before origination? Senseless are these Arians; for what likeness is
there between Son and work, that they should parallel a father’s
with a maker’s function? How is it that, with that difference
between offspring and work, which has been shewn, they remain so
ill-instructed? Let it be repeated then, that a work is external to the
nature, but a son is the proper offspring of the essence; it follows
that a work need not have been always, for the workman frames it when
he will; but an offspring is not subject to will, but is proper to the
essence1990
| 1990 Vid.
Orat. iii. §59, &c. | . And a man may be and may be called
Maker, though the works are not as yet; but father he cannot be called,
nor can he be, unless a son exist. And if they curiously inquire why
God, though always with the power to make, does not always make (though
this also be the presumption of madmen, for ‘who hath known the
mind of the Lord, or who hath been His Counsellor?’ or how
‘shall the thing formed say to’ the potter, ‘why
didst thou make me thus1991
?’ however,
not to leave even a weak argument unnoticed), they must be told, that
although God always had the power to make, yet the things originated
had not the power of being eternal1992
| 1992 Athan.’s argument is as follows: that, as it is of the
essence of a son to be ‘connatural’ with the father, so is
it of the essence of a creature to be of ‘nothing,’
ἐξ οὐκ
ὄντων; therefore,
while it was not impossible ‘from the nature of the
case,’ for Almighty God to be always Father, it was
impossible for the same reason that He should be always a Creator. vid.
infr. §58: where he takes, ‘They shall perish,’ in the
Psalm, not as a fact but as the definition of the nature of a
creature. Also ii. §1, where he says, ‘It is proper to
creatures and works to have said of them, ἐξ
οὐκ ὄντων and οὐκ
ἦν πρὶν
γεννηθῇ.’ vid. Cyril. Thesaur. 9. p. 67. Dial. ii. p.
460. on the question of being a Creator in posse, vid. supra,
Ep. Eus. 11 note 3. | . For they are
out of nothing, and therefore were not before their origination; but
things which were not before their origination, how could these coexist
with the ever-existing God? Wherefore God, looking to what was good for
them, then made them all when He saw that, when originated, they were
able to abide. And as, though He was able, even from the beginning in
the time of Adam, or Noah, or Moses, to send His own Word, yet He sent
Him not until the consummation of the ages (for this He saw to be good
for the whole creation), so also things originated did He make when He
would, and as was good for them. But the Son, not being a work, but proper to the Father’s
offspring, always is; for, whereas the Father always is, so what is
proper to His essence must always be; and this is His Word and His
Wisdom. And that creatures should not be in existence, does not
disparage the Maker; for He hath the power of framing them, when He
wills; but for the offspring not to be ever with the Father, is a
disparagement of the perfection of His essence. Wherefore His works
were framed, when He would, through His Word; but the Son is ever the
proper offspring of the Father’s essence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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