Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

By Archibald Robertson.

St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print

76 Pages (Part II)

Page 10

(37) The Sermo Maior de Fide. (Migne xxvi. 1263 sqq., with an additional fragment p. 1292 from Mai Bibl. nov.). This is a puzzling document in many ways. It has points of contact with the earliest works of Ath. (especially pieces nearly verbatim from the de Incarn., see notes there), also with the Expos. Fid. Card. Newman calls it with some truth 'Hardly more than a set of small fragments from Ath.'s other works.' However this may be, it is quoted by Theodoret as Athanasian more than once. The peculiarity lies in the constant iteration of ,'Anthropos for the Lord's human nature (see note on Exp. Fid.), and in some places as though it were merely the equivalent to soma or sarx, while in others the ,'Anthropos might be taken as the seat of Personality (26, 32). Accordingly the tract might be taken advantage of either by Nestorians, or still more by Apollinarians. The 'syllogistic method,' praised in the work by Montfaucon, was not unknown to the last-mentioned school. (Prov. viii. 22 is explained in the Athanasian way. For a fuller discussion, result unfavourable, see Bright, ubi supr. p. 145.)

(38) Fragments against Paul of Samosata, Macedonians, Novatians (Migne xxvi. 1293, 1313-1317). The first of these may well be genuine. It repeats the (mistaken) statement of Hist. Ar. 71, that Zenobia was a Jewess. Of the second, all that can be said is that it attacks the Macedonians in language borrowed from Ep. AEg. 11. The third, consisting of a somewhat larger group of five fragments, comprise a short sentence comparing the instrumentality of the priest in absolving to his instrumentality in baptizing.

It may be observed that fragments of this brevity rarely furnish a decisive criterion of genuineness.

(39) Interpretatio Symboli (ib. 1232, Hahn, S:66). Discussed fully by Caspari, Ungedruckte u.s.w. Quellen i. pp. 1-72, and proved to be an adaptation of a baptismal creed drawn up by Epiphanius (Ancor. ad fin.) in 374. It may be Alexandrian, and, if so, by Bishop Peter or Theophilus about 380. It is a ;;Ermeneia, or rather an expansion, of the Nicene, not as Montf. says, of the Apostles'(!), Creed.

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