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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 92
63. Moreover let them answer us this:--(for against their shamelessness I wish to urge a further question, bold indeed, but with a religious intent; be propitious, O Lord [3233] !)--the Father Himself, does He exist, first having counselled, then being pleased, or before counselling? For since they are so bold in the instance of the Word, they must receive the like answer, that they may know that this their presumption reaches even to the Father Himself. If then they shall themselves take counsel about will, and say that even He is from will, what then was He before He counselled, or what gained He, as ye consider, after counselling? But if such a question be unseemly and self-destructive, and shocking even to ask (for it is enough only to hear God's Name for us to know and understand that He is He that Is), will it not also be against reason to have parallel thoughts concerning the Word of God, and to make pretences of will and pleasure? for it is enough in like manner only to hear the Name of the Word, to know and understand that He who is God not by will, has not by will but by nature His own Word. And does it not surpass all conceivable madness, to entertain the thought only, that God Himself counsels and considers and chooses and proceeds to have a good pleasure, that He be not without Word and without Wisdom, but have both? for He seems to be considering about Himself, who counsels about what is proper to His Essence. There being then much blasphemy in such a thought, it will be religious to say that things originate have come to be 'by favour and will,' but the Son is not a work of will, nor has come after [3234] , as the creation, but is by nature the own Offspring of God's Essence. For being the own Word of the Father, He allows us not to account [3235] of will as before Himself, since He is Himself the Father's Living Counsel [3236] , and Power, and Framer of the things which seemed good to the Father. And this is what He says of Himself in the Proverbs; 'Counsel is mine and security, mine is understanding, and mine strength [3237] .' For as, although Himself the 'Understanding,' in which He prepared the heavens, and Himself 'Strength and Power' (for Christ is 'God's Power and God's Wisdom' [3238] ), He here has altered the terms and said, 'Mine is understanding' and 'Mine strength,' so while He says, 'Mine is counsel,' He must Himself be the Living [3239] Counsel of the Father; as we have learned from the Prophet also, that He becomes 'the Angel of great Counsel [3240] ,' and was called the good pleasure of the Father; for thus we must refute them, using human illustrations [3241] concerning God.
[3233] Vid. Or. i. 25, n. 2. Also Serap. i. 15, 16 init. 17, 20; iv. 8, 14. Ep. Aeg. 11 fin. Didym. Trin. iii. 3. p. 341. Ephr. Syr. adv. Haer. Serm. 55 init. (t. 2. p. 557.) Facund. Tr. Cap. iii. 3 init.
[3234] epigegonos, S:60, n. 3.
[3235] logisasthai tina boulesin, as S:66 (Latin version inexact).
[3236] agathou patros agathon boulema. Clem. Ped. iii. circ. fin. sophia, chrestotes, dunamis, thelema pantokratorikon. Strom. v. p. 547. Voluntas et potestas patris. Tertull. Orat. 4. Natus ex Patri quasi voluntas ex mente procedens. Origen. Periarch. i. 2. S:6. S. Jerome notices the same interpretation of 'by the will of God' in the beginning of Comment. in Ephes. But cf. Aug. Trin. xv. 20. And so Caesarius, agape ex agapes. Qu. 39.
[3237] Prov. viii. 14.
[3238] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[3239] zosa boule. supr. Or. ii. 2. Cyril in Joan. p. 213. zosa dunamis. Sabell. Greg. 5. c. zosa eikon. Naz. Orat. 30, 20. c. zosa energeia. Syn. Antioch. ap. Routh. Reliqu. t. 2. p. 469. zosa ischus. Cyril. in Joan. p. 951. zosa sophia. Origen. contr. Cels. iii. fin. zon logos. Origen. ibid. zon organon (heretically) Euseb. Dem. iv. 2.
[3240] Is. ix. 6.
[3241] Or. ii. 33, n. 12.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=92
