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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 93
64. Therefore if the works subsist 'by will and favour,' and the whole creature is made 'at God's good pleasure,' and Paul was called to be an Apostle 'by the will of God,' and our calling has come about 'by His good pleasure and will,' and all things have come into being through the Word, He is external to the things which have come to be by will, but rather is Himself the Living Counsel of the Father, by which all these things have come to be; by which David also gives thanks in the seventy-second Psalm. 'Thou hast holden me by my right hand; Thou shalt guide me with Thy Counsel [3242] .' How then can the Word, being the Counsel and Good Pleasure of the Father, come into being Himself 'by good pleasure and will,' like every one else? unless, as I said before, in their madness they repeat that He has come into being through Himself, or through some other [3243] . Who then is it through whom He has come to be? let them fashion another Word; and let them name another Christ, rivalling the doctrine of Valentinus [3244] ; for Scripture it is not. And though they fashion another, yet assuredly he too comes into being through some one; and so, while we are thus reckoning up and investigating the succession of them, the many-headed [3245] heresy of the Atheists [3246] is discovered to issue in polytheism [3247] and madness unlimited; in the which, wishing the Son to be a creature and from nothing, they imply the same thing in other words by pretending the words will and pleasure, which rightly belong to things originate and creatures. Is it not irreligious then to impute the characteristics of things originate to the Framer of all? and is it not blasphemous to say that will was in the Father before the Word? for if will precedes in the Father, the Son's words are not true, 'I in the Father;' or even if He is in the Father, yet He will hold but a second place, and it became Him not to say 'I in the Father,' since will was before Him, in which all things were brought into being and He Himself subsisted, as you hold. For though He excel in glory, He is not the less one of the things which by will come into being. And, as we have said before, if it be so, how is He Lord and they servants [3248] ? but He is Lord of all, because He is one with the Father's Lordship; and the creation is all in bondage, since it is external to the Oneness of the Father, and, whereas it once was not, was brought to be.
[3242] Ps. lxxiii. 23, 24.
[3243] di' heterou tinos. This idea has been urged against the Arians again and again, as just above, S:61; e.g. de Decr. 8, 24; Or. i. 15, below 65, sub. fin. vid. also Epiph. Haer. 76. p. 951. Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 11. c. 17, a. &c.
[3244] S:60.
[3245] polukephalos hairesis. And so poluk. panourgia, S:62. The allusion is to the hydra, with its ever-springing heads, as introduced S:58, n. 5. and with a special allusion to Asterius who is mentioned, S:60, and in de Syn. 18. is called poluk. sophistes.
[3246] Or. ii. 43, n. 4.
[3247] S:16, n. 4.
[3248] Or. i. 57; ii. 23.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=93
