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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 130 Pages
Page 30
2. But now let us see what Asterius the Sophist says, the retained pleader [2799] for the heresy. In imitation then of the Jews so far, he writes as follows; 'It is very plain that He has said, that He is in the Father and the Father again in Him, for this reason, that neither the word on which He was discoursing is, as He says, His own, but the Father's, nor the works belong to Him, but to the Father who gave Him the power.' Now this, if uttered at random by a little child, had been excused from his age; but when one who bears the title of Sophist, and professes universal knowledge [2800] , is the writer, what a serious condemnation does he deserve! And does he not shew himself a stranger to the Apostle [2801] , as being puffed up with persuasive words of wisdom, and thinking thereby to succeed in deceiving, not understanding himself what he says nor whereof he affirms [2802] ? For what the Son has said as proper and suitable to a Son only, who is Word and Wisdom and Image of the Father's Essence, that he levels to all the creatures, and makes common to the Son and to them; and he says, lawless [2803] man, that the Power of the Father receives power, that from this his irreligion it may follow to say that in a son [2804] the Son was made a son, and the Word received a word's authority; and, far from granting that He spoke this as a Son, He ranks Him with all things made as having learned it as they have. For if the Son said, 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me,' because His discourses were not His own words but the Father's, and so of His works, then,--since David says, 'I will hear what the Lord God shall say in me [2805] ,' and again Solomon [2806] , 'My words are spoken by God,' and since Moses was minister of words which were from God, and each of the Prophets spoke not what was his own but what was from God, 'Thus saith the Lord,' and since the works of the Saints, as they professed, were not their own but God's who gave the power, Elijah for instance and Elisha invoking God that He Himself would raise the dead, and Elisha saying to Naaman, on cleansing him from the leprosy, 'that thou mayest know that there is a God in Israel [2807] ,' and Samuel too in the days of the harvest praying to God to grant rain, and the Apostles saying that not in their own power they did miracles but in the Lord's grace--it is plain that, according to Asterius such a statement must be common to all, so that each of them is able to say, 'I in the Father and the Father in me;' and as a consequence that He is no longer one Son of God and Word and Wisdom, but, as others, is only one out of many.
[2799] sunegorou, infr. S:60.
[2800] panta ginoskein epangellomenos. Gorgias, according to Cicero de fin. ii. init. was the first who ventured in public to say proballete, 'give me a question.' This was the epangelma of the Sophists; of which Aristotle speaks. Rhet. ii. 24 fin. Vid. Cressol. Theatr. Rhet. iii. 11.
[2801] 1 Cor. ii. 4.
[2802] 1 Tim. i. 7.
[2803] paranomos. infr. 47, c. Hist. Ar. 71, 75, 79. Ep. Aeg. 16, d. Vid. anomos. 2 Thess. ii. 8.
[2804] en hui& 254;, but en to hui& 254;. Ep. Aeg. 14 fin. vid. Or. ii. 22, note 2.
[2805] Ps. lxxxv. 8, LXX.
[2806] 1 Kings viii. 59, or x. 24?
[2807] 2 Kings v. 8, 15.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=30
