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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 4
58. Thus does divine Scripture recognise the difference between the Offspring and things made, and shew that the Offspring is a Son, not begun from any beginning, but eternal; but that the thing made, as an external work of the Maker, began to come into being. John therefore delivering divine doctrine [2593] about the Son, and knowing the difference of the phrases, said not, 'In the beginning has become' or 'been made,' but 'In the beginning was the Word;' that we might understand 'Offspring' by 'was,' and not account of Him by intervals, but believe the Son always and eternally to exist. And with these proofs, how, O Arians, misunderstanding the passage in Deuteronomy, did you venture a fresh act of irreligion [2594] against the Lord, saying that 'He is a work,' or 'creature,' or indeed 'offspring?' for offspring and work you take to mean the same thing; but here too you shall be shewn to be as unlearned as you are irreligious. Your first passage is this, 'Is not He thy Father that bought thee? did He not make thee and create thee [2595] ?' And shortly after in the same Song he says, 'God that begat thee thou didst desert, and forgattest God that nourished thee [2596] .' Now the meaning conveyed in these passages is very remarkable; for he says not first 'He begat,' lest that term should be taken as indiscriminate with 'He made,' and these men should have a pretence for saying, 'Moses tells us indeed that God said from the beginning, "Let Us make man [2597] ,"' but he soon after says himself, 'God that begat thee thou didst desert,' as if the terms were indifferent; for offspring and work are the same. But after the words 'bought' and 'made,' he has added last of all 'begat,' that the sentence might carry its own interpretation; for in the word 'made' he accurately denotes what belongs to men by nature, to be works and things made; but in the word 'begat' he shews God's lovingkindness exercised towards men after He had created them. And since they have proved ungrateful upon this, thereupon Moses reproaches them, saying first, 'Do ye thus requite the Lord?' and then adds, 'Is not He thy Father that bought thee? Did He not make thee and create thee [2598] ?' And next he says, 'They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not. New gods and strange came up, whom your fathers knew not; the God that begat thee thou didst desert [2599] .'
[2593] theologon, vid. S:71, note.
[2594] The technical sense of eusebeia, asebeia, pietas, impietas, for 'orthodoxy, heterodoxy,' has been noticed supr. p. 150, and derived from 1 Tim. iii. 16. The word is contrasted ch. iv. 8. with the (perhaps Gnostic) 'profane and old-wives fables,' and with 'bodily exercise.'
[2595] Deut. xxxii. 6. LXX.
[2596] Ibid. 18.
[2597] Gen. i. 26.
[2598] Deut. xxxii. 6.
[2599] Ibid. 17.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=4
