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| To Adelphius, Bishop and Confessor: against the Arians.
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Letter LX.—To Adelphius4738
| 4738 Adelphius is named in the ‘Tome’ (above, p. 486), as
bishop of Onuphis. Previously he had been exiled by the Arians to the
Thebaid (above, pp. 297, &c.). Hence in the title of this letter he
is styled ‘Confessor.’ The letter (Migne xxvi, 1072) is
directed against the Arian Christology. Although Ath. treats it
(§1) as a ‘new blasphemy,’ it had been held by
the Arians from the first; Epiph. Anc. 33, traces it back to
Lucian; but doubtless it had by this time been brought more to the
front in their teaching. We know that it occupied a prominent place in
the Eunomian system. (References in Dorner III. i. 3.) After briefly
refuting the doctrinal error, Athanasius turns to the Arian charge of
creature-worship brought against the Nicene doctrine. Not forgetting to
remind them that their own doctrine was really open to this charge,
Ath. points out at greater length that the object of Catholic worship
is not the human nature of Christ as such, but the Word Incarnate; and
that the human Saviour is worshipped because He is the Word Himself.
The date proposed by Montfaucon is adopted, though there is nothing to
fix it absolutely. Its style closely resembles that of the writings of
the ‘third Exile.’ (See also Bright, Later Tr., p.
61.) | , Bishop and
Confessor: against the Arians.
We have read what your
piety has written to us, and genuinely approve your piety toward
Christ. And above all we glorify God, Who has given you such grace as
not only to have right opinions, but also, so far as that is possible,
not to be ignorant of the devices4739
of the devil.
But we marvel at the perversity of the heretics, seeing that they have
fallen into such a pit of impiety that they no longer retain even their
senses, but have their understanding corrupted on all sides. But this
attempt is a plot of the devil, and an imitation of the disobedient
Jews. For as the latter, when refuted on all sides, kept devising
excuses to their own hurt, if only they could deny the Lord and bring
upon themselves what was prophesied against them, in like manner these
men, seeing themselves proscribed on all hands, and perceiving that
their heresy has become abominable to all, prove themselves
‘inventors of evil things4740
,’ in
order that, not ceasing their fightings against the truth, they may
remain consistent and genuine adversaries of Christ. For whence has
this new mischief of theirs sprung forth? How have they even ventured
to utter this new blasphemy against the Saviour? But the impious man,
it seems, is a worthless object, and truly ‘reprobate concerning
the Faith4741
.’ For formerly, while denying
the Godhead of the only-begotten Son of God, they pretended at any rate
to acknowledge His coming in the Flesh. But now, gradually going from
bad to worse, they have fallen from this opinion of theirs, and become
Godless on all hands, so as neither to acknowledge Him as God, nor to
believe that He has become man. For if they believed this they would
not have uttered such things as your piety has reported against
them.
2. You, however, beloved and most truly
longed-for, have done what befitted the tradition of the Church and
your piety toward the Lord, in refuting, admonishing, and rebuking such
men. But since, instigated by their father the devil, ‘they knew
not nor understood,’ as it is written, ‘but go on still in
darkness4742
,’ let them learn from your piety
that this error of theirs belongs to Valentinus and Marcion, and to
Manichæus, of whom some substituted [the idea of] Appearance for
Reality, while the others, dividing what is indivisible, denied the
truth that ‘the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us4743
.’ Why then, as they hold with those
people, do they not also take up the heritage of their names? For it is
reasonable, as they hold their error, to have their names as well, and
for the future to be called Valentinians, Marcionists, and
Manichæans. Perhaps even thus, being put to shame by the ill
savour of the names, they may be enabled to perceive into what a depth
of impiety they have fallen. And it would be within our rights not to
answer them at all, according to the apostolic advice4744
: ‘A man that is heretical, after a
first and second admonition refuse, knowing that such an one is
perverted, and sinneth, being self-condemned;’ the more so, in
that the Prophet says about such men: ‘The fool shall utter
foolishness, and his heart shall imagine vain things4745
.’ But since, like their leader, they
too go about like lions seeking whom among the simple they shall
devour4746
, we are compelled to write in reply to
your piety, that the brethren being once again instructed by your
admonition may still further reprobate the vain teaching of those
men.
3. We do not worship a creature. Far be the
thought. For such an error belongs to heathens and Arians. But we
worship the Lord of Creation, Incarnate, the Word of God. For if the
flesh also is in itself a part of the created world, yet it has become
God’s body. And we neither divide the body, being such, from the
Word, and worship it by itself4747
| 4747 As
some modern devotions at least tend to do. | , nor when we wish
to worship the Word do we set Him far apart from the Flesh, but
knowing, as we said above, that ‘the Word was made flesh,’
we recognise Him as God also, after having come in the flesh. Who,
accordingly, is so senseless as to say to the Lord: ‘Leave the
Body that I may worship Thee;’ or so impious as to join the
senseless Jews in saying, on account of the Body, ‘Why dost Thou,
being a man, make Thyself God4748
?’ But the
leper was not one of this sort, for he worshipped God in the Body, and
recognised that He was God, saying, ‘Lord, if Thou wilt Thou
canst make me clean4749
.’ Neither by
reason of the Flesh did he think
the Word of God a creature: nor because the Word was the maker of all
creation did he despise the Flesh which He had put on. But he
worshipped the Creator of the universe as dwelling in a created temple,
and was cleansed. So also the woman with an issue of blood, who
believed, and only touched the hem of His garment, was healed4750
, and the sea with its foaming waves heard
the incarnate Word, and ceased its storm4751
,
while the man blind from birth was healed by the fleshly spitting of
the Word4752
. And, what is greater and more
startling (for perhaps this even offended those most impious men), even
when the Lord was hanging upon the actual cross (for it was His Body
and the Word was in it), the sun was darkened and the earth shook, the
rocks were rent, and the vail of the temple rent, and many bodies of
the saints which slept arose.
4. These things then happened, and no one
doubted, as the Arians now venture to doubt, whether one is to believe
the incarnate Word; but even from beholding the man, they recognised
that He was their maker, and when they heard a human voice, they did
not, because it was human, say that the Word was a creature. On the
contrary, they trembled, and recognised nothing less than that it was
being uttered from a holy Temple. How then can the impious fail to fear
lest ‘as they refused to have God in their knowledge, they may be
given up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
fitting4753
?’ For Creation does not worship
a creature. Nor again did she on account of His Flesh refuse to worship
her Lord. But she beheld her maker in the Body, and ‘in the Name
of Jesus every knee’ bowed, yea and ‘shall bow, of things
in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every
tongue shall confess,’ whether the Arians approve or no,
‘that Jesus is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father4754
.’ For the Flesh did not diminish the
glory of the Word; far be the thought: on the contrary, it was
glorified by Him. Nor, because the Son that was in the form of God took
upon Him the form of a servant4755
was He deprived of
His Godhead. On the contrary, He is thus become the Deliverer of all
flesh and of all creation. And if God sent His Son brought forth from a
woman, the fact causes us no shame but contrariwise glory and great
grace. For He has become Man, that He might deify us in Himself, and He
has been born of a woman, and begotten of a Virgin, in order to
transfer to Himself our erring generation4756
| 4756 πλανηθεῖσαν
γέννησιν. | ,
and that we may become henceforth a holy race, and ‘partakers of
the Divine Nature,’ as blessed Peter wrote4757
. And ‘what the law could not do in
that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh4758
.’
5. Seeing then that Flesh was taken by the Word
to deliver all men, raise all from the dead, and make redemption for
sins, must not they appear ungrateful, and be worthy of all hatred, who
make light of the Flesh, as well as those who on account of it charge
the Son of God with being a thing created or made? For they as good as
cry to God and say: ‘Send not Thine Only-begotten Son in the
Flesh, cause Him not to take flesh of a virgin, lest He redeem us from
death and sin. We do not wish Him to come in the body, lest He should
undergo death on our behalf: we do not desire the Word to be made
flesh, lest in it He should become our Mediator to gain access to thee,
and we so inhabit the heavenly mansions. Let the gates of the heavens
be shut lest Thy Word consecrate for us the road thither through the
veil, namely His Flesh4759
.’ These are
their utterances, vented with diabolical daring, by the error they have
devised. For they who do not wish to worship the Word made flesh, are
ungrateful for His becoming man. And they who divide the Word from the
Flesh do not hold that one redemption from sin has taken place, or one
destruction of death. But where at all will these impious men find the
Flesh which the Saviour took, apart from Him, that they should even
venture to say ‘we do not worship the Lord with the Flesh, but we
separate the Body, and worship Him alone.’ Why, the blessed
Stephen saw in the heavens the Lord standing on [God’s] right
hand4760
, while the Angels said to the disciples,
‘He shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going into
heaven4761
:’ and the Lord Himself says,
addressing the Father, ‘I will that where I am, they also may be
with Me4762
.’ And surely if the Flesh is
inseparable from the Word, does it not follow that these men must
either lay aside their error, and for the future worship the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, or, if they do not worship or serve
the Word Who came in the Flesh, be cast out on all sides, and count no
longer as Christians but either as heathens, or among the Jews.
6. Such then, as we have above described, is the
madness and daring of those men. But our faith is right, and starts
from the teaching of the Apostles
and tradition of the fathers, being confirmed both by the New Testament
and the Old. For the Prophets say: ‘Send out Thy Word and Thy
Truth4763
,’ and ‘Behold the Virgin shall
conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which
is being interpreted God with us4764
.’ But
what does that mean, if not that God has come in the Flesh? While the
Apostolic tradition teaches in the words of blessed Peter,
‘Forasmuch then as Christ suffered for us in the Flesh;’
and in what Paul writes, ‘Looking for the blessed hope and
appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself
for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto
Himself a people for His own possession, and zealous of good works4765
.’ How then has He given Himself, if He
had not worn flesh? For flesh He offered, and gave Himself for us, in
order that undergoing death in it, ‘He might bring to nought him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil4766
.’ Hence also we always give thanks in
the name of Jesus Christ, and we do not set at nought the grace which
came to us through Him. For the coming of the Saviour in the flesh has
been the ransom and salvation of all creation. So then, beloved and
most longed-for, let what I have said put in mind those who love the
Lord, while as to those who have imitated the behaviour of Judas, and
deserted the Lord to join Caiaphas, let them by these things be taught
better, if maybe they are willing, if maybe they are ashamed. And let
them know that in worshipping the Lord in the flesh we do not worship a
creature, but, as we said above, the Creator Who has put on the created
body.
7. But we should like your piety to ask them
this. When Israel was ordered to go up to Jerusalem to worship at the
temple of the Lord, where was the ark, ‘and above it the Cherubim
of glory overshadowing the Mercy-seat4767
,’ did they do well or the opposite? If
they did ill, how came it that they who despised this law were liable
to punishment? for it is written that if a man make light of it and go
not up, he shall perish from among the people4768
.
But if they did well, and in this proved well-pleasing to God, are not
the Arians, abominable and most shameful of any heresy, many times
worthy of destruction, in that while they approve the former People for
the honour paid by them to the Temple, they will not worship the Lord
Who is in the flesh as in a temple? And yet the former temple was
constructed of stones and gold, as a shadow. But when the reality came,
the type ceased from thenceforth, and there did not remain, according
to the Lord’s utterance, one stone upon another that was not
broken down4769
. And they did not, when they saw the
temple of stones, suppose that the Lord who spoke in the temple was a
creature; nor did they set the Temple at nought and retire far off to
worship. But they came to it according to the Law, and worshipped the
God who uttered His oracles from the Temple. Since then this was so,
how can it be other than right to worship the Body of the Lord,
all-holy and all-reverend as it is, announced as it was by the
archangel Gabriel, formed by the Holy Spirit, and made the Vesture of
the Word? It was at any rate a bodily hand that the Word stretched out
to raise her that was sick of a fever4770
: a
human voice that He uttered to raise Lazarus from the dead4771
; and, once again, stretching out His hands
upon the Cross, He overthrew the prince of the power of the air, that
now works4772
| 4772 Eph. ii. 2. Athan. here
omits the τοῦ
πνεύματος, thus increasing the difficulty of the gen.
particp. | in the sons of disobedience, and made
the way clear for us into the heavens.
8. Therefore he that dishonours the Temple
dishonours the Lord in the Temple; and he that separates the Word from
the Body sets at nought the grace given to us in Him. And let not the
most impious Arian madmen suppose that, since the Body is created, the
Word also is a creature, nor let them, because the Word is not a
creature, disparage His Body. For their error is matter for wonder, in
that they at once confuse and disturb everything, and devise pretexts
only in order to number the Creator among the creatures.
But let them listen. If the Word were a creature,
He would not assume the created body to quicken it. For what help can
creatures derive from a creature that itself needs salvation? But since
the Word being Creator has Himself made the creatures, therefore also
at the consummation of the ages4773
He put on the
creature, that He as creator might once more consecrate it, and be able
to recover it. But a creature could never be saved by a creature, any
more than the creatures were created by a creature, if the Word was not
creator. Accordingly let them not lie against the divine Scriptures nor
give offence to simple brethren; but if they are willing let them
change their mind in their turn, and no longer worship the creature
instead of God, Who made all things. But if they wish to abide by their
impieties, let them alone take their fill of them, and let them gnash
their teeth like their father the
devil, because the Faith of the Catholic Church knows that the Word of
God is creator and maker of all things; and we know that while
‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God4774
,’ now that He has become also man for
our salvation we worship Him, not as though He had come in the body
equalising Himself with it, but as Master, assuming the form of the
servant, and Maker and Creator coming in a creature in order that, in
it delivering all things, He might bring the world nigh to the Father,
and make all things to be at peace, things in heaven and things on the
earth. For thus also we recognise His Godhead, even the Father’s,
and worship His Incarnate Presence, even if the Arian madmen burst
themselves in sunder.
Greet all that love the Lord Jesus Christ. We
pray that you may be well, and remember us to the Lord, beloved and
truly most longed-for. If need be this is to be read to Hieracas4775
| 4775 Perhaps the ‘Hierax’ of pp. 257, 297, 560,
above. | the presbyter.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
