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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 56
28. Such error then being Judaic, and Judaic after the mind of Judas the traitor, let them openly confess themselves scholars of Caiaphas and Herod, instead of cloking Judaism with the name of Christianity, and let them deny outright, as we have said before, the Saviour's appearance in the flesh, for this doctrine is akin to their heresy; or if they fear openly to Judaize and be circumcised [2994] , from servility towards Constantius and for their sake whom they have beguiled, then let them not say what the Jews say; for if they disown the name, let them in fairness renounce the doctrine. For we are Christians, O Arians, Christians we; our privilege is it well to know the Gospels concerning the Saviour, and neither, with Jews to stone Him, if we hear of His Godhead and Eternity, nor with you to stumble at such lowly sayings as He may speak for our sakes as man. If then you would become Christians [2995] , put off Arius's madness, and cleanse [2996] with the words of religion those ears of yours which blaspheming has defiled; knowing that, by ceasing to be Arians, you will cease also from the malevolence of the present Jews. Then at once will truth shine on you out of darkness, and ye will no longer reproach us with holding two Eternals [2997] , but ye will yourselves acknowledge that the Lord is God's true Son by nature, and not as merely eternal [2998] , but revealed as co-existing in the Father's eternity. For there are things called eternal of which He is Framer; for in the twenty-third Psalm it is written, 'Lift up your gates, O ye rulers, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting gates [2999] ;' and it is plain that through Him these things were made; but if even of things everlasting He is the Framer, who of us shall be able henceforth to dispute that He is anterior to those things eternal, and in consequence is proved to be Lord not so much from His eternity, as in that He is God's Son; for being the Son, He is inseparable from the Father, and never was there when He was not, but He was always; and being the Father's Image and Radiance, He has the Father's eternity. Now what has been briefly said above may suffice to shew their misunderstanding of the passages they then alleged; and that of what they now allege from the Gospels they certainly give an unsound interpretation [3000] , we may easily see, if we now consider the scope [3001] of that faith which we Christians hold, and using it as a rule, apply ourselves, as the Apostle teaches, to the reading of inspired Scripture. For Christ's enemies, being ignorant of this scope, have wandered from the way of truth, and have stumbled [3002] on a stone of stumbling, thinking otherwise than they should think.
[2994] Or. i. 38.
[2995] Apol. Fug. 27, n. 10.
[2996] De Decr. 2, n. 9, c. Sab. Greg. 6 fin.
[2997] Cf. de Decr. 25, n. 4. The peculiarity of the Catholic doctrine, as contrasted with the heresies on the subject of the Trinity, is that it professes a mystery. It involves, not merely a contradiction in the terms used, which would be little, for we might solve it by assigning different senses to the same word, or by adding some limitation (e.g. if it were said that Satan was an Angel and not an Angel, or man was mortal and immortal), but an incongruity in the ideas which it introduces. To say that the Father is wholly and absolutely the one infinitely-simple God, and then that the Son is also, and yet that the Father is eternally distinct from the Son, is to propose ideas which we cannot harmonize together; and our reason is reconciled to this state of the case only by the consideration (though fully by means of it) that no idea of ours can embrace the simple truth, so that we are obliged to separate it into portions, and view it in aspects, and adumbrate it under many ideas, if we are to make any approximation towards it at all; as in mathematics we approximate to a circle by means of a polygon, great as is the dissimilarity between the two figures. [Cf. Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3 (2) b.]
[2998] ouch haplos a& 188;dios, i.e. aidios is not one of our Lord's highest titles, for things have it which the Son Himself has created, and whom of course He precedes. Instead of two aidia then, as the Arians say, there are many aidia; and our Lord's high title is not this, but that He is 'the Son,' and thereby 'eternal in the Father's eternity,' or there was not ever when He was not, and 'Image' and 'Radiance.' The same line of thought is implied throughout his proof of our Lord's eternity in Orat. i. ch. 4 6. This is worth remarking, as constituting a special distinction between ancient and modern Scripture proofs of the doctrine, and as coinciding with what was said supr. Or. ii. 1, n. 13, 44, n. 1. His mode of proof is still more brought out by what he proceeds to say about the skopos, or general bearing or drift of the Christian faith, and its availableness as a kanon or rule of interpretation.
[2999] Ps. xxiv. 7.
[3000] Cf. 26, n. 9.
[3001] skopos, vid. 58. fin.
[3002] Rom. ix. 32.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=56
