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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 87
Chapter XXX.--Objections continued, as in Chapters vii.--x. Whether the Son is begotten of the Father's will? This virtually the same as whether once He was not? and used by the Arians to introduce the latter question. The Regula Fidei answers it at once in the negative by contrary texts. The Arians follow the Valentinians in maintaining a precedent will; which really is only exercised by God towards creatures. Instances from Scripture. Inconsistency of Asterius. If the Son by will, there must be another Word before Him. If God is good, or exist, by His will, then is the Son by His will. If He willed to have reason or wisdom, then is His Word and Wisdom at His will. The Son is the Living Will, and has all titles which denote connaturality. That will which the Father has to the Son, the Son has to the Father. The Father wills the Son and the Son wills the Father.
58. (continued). But [3203] , as it seems, a heretic is a wicked thing in truth, and in every respect his heart is depraved [3204] and irreligious. For behold, though convicted on all points, and shewn to be utterly bereft of understanding, they feel no shame; but as the hydra of Gentile fable, when its former serpents were destroyed, gave birth to fresh ones, contending against the slayer of the old by the production of new, so also they, hostile [3205] and hateful to God [3206] , as hydras [3207] , losing their life in the objections which they advance, invent for themselves other questions Judaic and foolish, and new expedients, as if Truth were their enemy, thereby to shew the rather that they are Christ's opponents in all things.
[3203] This chapter is in a very different style from the foregoing portions of this Book, and much more resembles the former two; not only in its subject and the mode of treating it, but in the words introduced, e.g. epispeirousi, epinoousi, gonguzousi, kath' humas, atopon, lexeidion, heis ton panton, &c. And the references are to the former Orations.
[3204] See 50, n. 10; Serap. i. 18.
[3205] theomachoi, de Decr. 3, n. 1; Or. ii. 32, n. 4. Vid. Dissert. by Bucher on the word in Acts v. 39. ap. Thesaur. Theol. Phil. N. T. t. 2.
[3206] theostugeis, S:40.
[3207] S:64, note.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=87
