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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 114
40. Therefore, if neither in the divine oracles is found another wisdom besides this Son, nor from the fathers [2469] have we heard of any such, yet they have confessed and written of the Wisdom coexisting with the Father unoriginately, proper to Him, and the Framer of the world, this must be the Son who even according to them is eternally coexistent with the Father. For He is Framer of all, as it is written, 'In Wisdom hast Thou made them all [2470] .' Nay, Asterius himself, as if forgetting what he wrote before, afterwards, in Caiaphas's [2471] fashion, involuntarily, when urging the Greeks, instead of naming many wisdoms, or the caterpillar, confesses but one, in these words;--'God the Word is one, but many are the things rational; and one is the essence and nature of Wisdom, but many are the things wise and beautiful.' And soon afterwards he says again:--'Who are they whom they honour with the title of God's children? for they will not say that they too are words, nor maintain that there are many wisdoms. For it is not possible, whereas the Word is one, and Wisdom has been set forth as one, to dispense to the multitude of children the Essence of the Word, and to bestow on them the appellation of Wisdom.' It is not then at all wonderful, that the Arians should battle with the truth, when they have collisions with their own principles and conflict with each other, at one time saying that there are many wisdoms, at another maintaining one; at one time classing wisdom with the caterpillar, at another saying that it coexists with the Father and is proper to Him; now that the Father alone is unoriginate, and then again that His Wisdom and His Power are unoriginate also. And they battle with us for saying that the Word of God is ever, yet forget their own doctrines, and say themselves that Wisdom coexists with God unoriginately [2472] . So dizzied [2473] are they in all these matters, denying the true Wisdom, and inventing one which is not, as the Manichees who make to themselves another God, after denying Him that is.
[2469] Ib. note 2.
[2470] Ps. civ. 24.
[2471] Vid. John xi. 50
[2472] Asterius held, 1. that there was an Attribute called Wisdom; 2. that the Son was created by and called after that Attribute; or 1. that Wisdom was ingenerate and eternal, 2. that there were created wisdoms, words, powers many, of which the Son was one.
[2473] skotodiniosi, Orat. iii. 42. init.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=114
