St Athanasius the Great FOUR DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS, Part II, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 63

35. These points we have found it necessary first to examine, that, when we see Him doing or saying aught divinely through the instrument [3052] of His own body, we may know that He so works, being God, and also, if we see Him speaking or suffering humanly, we may not be ignorant that He bore flesh and became man, and hence He so acts and so speaks. For if we recognise what is proper to each, and see and understand that both these things and those are done by One [3053] , we are right in our faith, and shall never stray. But if a man looking at what is done divinely by the Word, deny the body, or looking at what is proper to the body, deny the Word's presence in the flesh, or from what is human entertain low thoughts concerning the Word, such a one, as a Jewish vintner [3054] , mixing water with the wine, shall account the Cross an offence, or as a Gentile, will deem the preaching folly. This then is what happens to God's enemies the Arians; for looking at what is human in the Saviour, they have judged Him a creature. Therefore they ought, looking also at the divine works of the Word, to deny [3055] the origination of His body, and henceforth to rank themselves with Manichees [3056] . But for them, learn they, however tardily, that 'the Word became flesh;' and let us, retaining the general scope [3057] of the faith, acknowledge that what they interpret ill, has a right interpretation [3058] .

[3052] Cf. 31, n. 10.

[3053] Vid. infr. 39-41. and 56, n. 7. Cf. Procl. ad Armen. p. 615. Leo's Tome (Ep. 28, 3) also Hil. Trin. ix. 11 fin. 'Vagit infans, sed in coelo est, &c.' ibid. x. 54. Ambros. de Fid. ii. 77. Erat vermis in cruce sed dimittebat peccata. Non habebat speciem, sed plenitudinem divinitatis, &c. Id. Epist. i. 46, n. 5. Theoph. Ep. Pasch. 6. ap. Conc. Ephes. p. 1404. Hard.

[3054] Vid. Is. i. 22, LXX.; Or. ii. 80; de Decr. 10.

[3055] Thus heresies are partial views of the truth, starting from some truth which they exaggerate, and disowning and protesting against other truth, which they fancy inconsistent with it. vid. supr. Or. i. 26, n. 2.

[3056] De Syn. 33; Or. i. 8.

[3057] Cf. S:28, n. 11.

[3058] Cf. S:30, n. 7.

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