|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
76 Pages (Part II)
Page 39
5. Content of Revelation. God Three in One and the Incarnation.
To dwell at length on the theology of Athanasius under this head is unnecessary here, not because there is little to say, but partly because what there is to say has been to some extent anticipated above, S:S:2, 3, and ch. ii. pp. xxxii., xxxvi., partly because the history of his life and work is the best exposition of what he believed and taught. That his theology on these central subjects was profoundly moulded by the Nicene formula is (to the present writer at least) the primary fact (see ch. ii. S:3 (1), and (2) b). This of course presupposes that the Nicene faith found in him a character and mind prepared to become its interpreter and embodiment; and that this was so his pre-Nicene writings sufficiently shew.
For instance, his progressive stress on the Unity of the Godhead in Father, Son, and Spirit is but the following up of the thought expressed de Incarn. 17. 1 en mono to heautou Patri holos on kata panta. It may be noted that he argues also from the idea of the Trinity to the coessential Godhead of the Spirit, ad Serap. i. 28, sq., Trias de estin ouch heos onomatos monon...alla alethei& 139; kai huparxei trias...eipatosan palin...trias estin e duas; and that he meets the difficulty (see infra, p. 438, ten lines from end, also Petav. Trin. VII. xiv.) of differentiating the relation of the Spirit to the Father from the gennesis of the Son by a confession of ignorance and a censure upon those who assume that they can search out the deep things of God (ib. 17-19). The principle might be applied to this point which is laid down de Decr. 11, that 'an act' belonging to the essence of God, cannot, by virtue of the simplicity of the Divine Nature, be more than one: the 'act' therefore of divine gennesis (the nature of which we do not know) cannot apply to the Spirit but only to the Son. But I do not recollect any passage in which Athanasius draws this conclusion from his own premises. The language of Athanasius on the procession of the Spirit is unstudied. In Exp. Fid. 4, he appears to adopt the 'procession' of the Spirit from the Father through the Son (after Dionysius, see Sent. Dion. 17). In Serap. i. 2, 20, 32, iii. 1, he speaks of the Spirit as idion tou Logou, just as the Word is idios tou Patros. His language on the subject, expressing the idea common to East and West (under the cloud of logomachies which envelop the subject) might possibly furnish the basis of an 'eirenicon' between the two separated portions of Christendom. In explaining the 'theophanies' of the Old Testament, Athanasius takes a position intermediate between that of the Apologists, &c. (supr., p. xxiii.) who referred them to the Word, and that of Augustine who referred them to Angels only. According to Athanasius the 'Angel' was and was not the Word: regarded as visible he was an Angel simply, but the Voice was the Divine utterance through the Word (see Orat. iii. 12, 14; de Syn. 27, Anath 15, note; also Serap. i. 14).
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism-2.asp?pg=39
