|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
56 Pages
Page 28
(2.) Nor may we, adopting the hazardous position, 'There was once when He was not,' from unscriptural sources, imagine any interval of time before Him, but only the God who has generated Him apart from time; for through Him both times and ages came to be. Yet we must not consider the Son to be co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with the Father; for no one can be properly called Father or Son of one who is co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with Him [3550] . But we acknowledge [3551] that the Father who alone is Unbegun and Ingenerate, hath generated inconceivably and incomprehensibly to all: and that the Son hath been generated before ages, and in no wise to be ingenerate Himself like the Father, but to have the Father who generated Him as His beginning; for 'the Head of Christ is God.' (1 Cor. xi. 3.)
(3.) Nor again, in confessing three realities and three Persons, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost according to the Scriptures, do we therefore make Gods three; since we acknowledge the Self-complete and Ingenerate and Unbegun and Invisible God to be one only [3552] , the God and Father (Joh. xx. 17) of the Only-begotten, who alone hath being from Himself, and alone vouchsafes this to all others bountifully.
(4.) Nor again, in saying that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is one only God, the only Ingenerate, do we therefore deny that Christ also is God before ages: as the disciples of Paul of Samosata, who say that after the incarnation He was by advance [3553] made God, from being made by nature a mere man. For we acknowledge, that though He be subordinate to His Father and God, yet, being before ages begotten of God, He is God perfect according to nature and true [3554] , and not first man and then God, but first God and then becoming man for us, and never having been deprived of being.
(5.) We abhor besides, and anathematize those who make a pretence of saying that He is but the mere word of God and unexisting, having His being in another,--now as if pronounced, as some speak, now as mental [3555] ,--holding that He was not Christ or Son of God or mediator or image of God before ages; but that He first became Christ and Son of God, when He took our flesh from the Virgin, not quite four hundred years since. For they will have it that then Christ began His Kingdom, and that it will have an end after the consummation of all and the judgment [3556] . Such are the disciples of Marcellus and Scotinus [3557] of Galatian Ancyra, who, equally with Jews, negative Christ's existence before ages, and His Godhead, and unending Kingdom, upon pretence of supporting the divine Monarchy. We, on the contrary, regard Him not as simply God's pronounced word or mental, but as Living God and Word, existing in Himself, and Son of God and Christ; being and abiding with His Father before ages, and that not in foreknowledge only [3558] , and ministering to Him for the whole framing whether of things visible or invisible. For He it is, to whom the Father said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness [3559] ' (Gen. i. 26), who also was seen in His own Person [3560] by the patriarchs, gave the law, spoke by the prophets, and at last, became man, and manifested His own Father to all men, and reigns to never-ending ages. For Christ has taken no recent dignity, but we have believed Him to be perfect from the first, and like in all things to the Father [3561] .
[3550] They argue after the usual Arian manner, that the term 'Son' essentially implies beginning, and excludes the title 'co-unoriginate;' but see supr. S:16, note 1, and p. 154, note 5.
[3551] [The four lines which follow are cited by Lightfoot, Ign. p. 91. ed. 2, as from de Syn. S:3.]
[3552] Cf. S:28, end.
[3553] ek prokopes, de Decr. S:10, note 10.
[3554] These strong words, theon kata phusin teleion kai alethe are of a different character from any which have occurred in the Arian Confessions. They can only be explained away by considering them used in contrast to the Samosatene doctrine; so that 'perfect according to nature' and 'true,' will not be directly connected with 'God' so much as opposed to, 'by advance,' 'by adoption,' &c.
[3555] The use of the words endiathetos and prophorikos, mental and pronounced, to distinguish the two senses of logos, reason and word, came from the school of the Stoics, and is found in Philo, and was under certain limitations allowed in Catholic theology, Damasc. F. O. ii. 21. To use either absolutely and to the exclusion of the other would have involved some form of Sabellianism, or Arianism as the case might be; but each might correct the defective sense of either. S. Theophilus speaks of our Lord as at once endiathetos and prophorikos. ad Autol. ii. 10 and 22, S. Cyril as endiathetos, in Joann. p. 39. but see also Thesaur. p. 47. When the Fathers deny that our Lord is the prophorikos logos, they only mean that that title is not, even as far as its philosophical idea went, an adequate representative of Him, a word spoken being insubstantive, vid. Orat. ii. 35; Hil. de Syn. 46; Cyr. Catech. xi. 10; Damas. Ep. ii. p. 203; Cyril in Joann. p. 31; Iren. Haer. ii. 12. n. 5. Marcellus is said by Eusebius to have considered our Lord as first the one and then the other. Eccl. Theol. ii. 15.
[3556] This passage seems taken from Eusebius, and partly from Marcellus's own words. S. Cyril speaks of his doctrine in like terms. Catech. xv. 27.
[3557] i.e. Photinus. [A note illustrating the frequency of similar nicknames is omitted. On Photinus, see Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3. ad fin.]
[3558] Cf. Euseb. contr. Marc. i. 2.
[3559] Cf. S:27, notes.
[3560] autoprosopos and so Cyril Hier. Catech. xv. 14 and 17 (It means, 'not in personation'), and Philo contrasting divine appearances with those of Angels. Leg. Alleg. iii. 62. On the other hand, Theophilus on the text, 'The voice of the Lord God walking in the garden,' speaks of the Word, 'assuming the person, prosopon, of the Father,' and 'in the person of God,' ad Autol. ii. 22. the word not then having its theological sense.
[3561] homoion kata panta. Here again we have a strong Semi-Arian or almost Catholic formula introduced by the bye. Of course it admitted of evasion, but in its fulness it included 'essence.' [See above S:8, note 1, and Introd.]
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=28
