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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 119
45. For in this passage, not as signifying the Essence of His Godhead, nor His own everlasting and genuine generation from the Father, has the Word spoken by Solomon, but on the other hand His manhood and Economy towards us. And, as I said before, He has not said 'I am a creature,' or 'I became a creature,' but only 'He created [2506] .' For the creatures, having a created essence, are originate, and are said to be created, and of course the creature is created: but this mere term 'He created' does not necessarily signify the essence or the generation, but indicates something else as coming to pass in Him of whom it speaks, and not simply that He who is said to be created, is at once in His Nature and Essence a creature [2507] . And this difference divine Scripture recognises, saying concerning the creatures, 'The earth is full of Thy creation,' and 'the creation itself groaneth together and travaileth together [2508] ;' and in the Apocalypse it says, 'And the third part of the creatures in the sea died which had life;' as also Paul says, 'Every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving [2509] ;' and in the book of Wisdom it is written, 'Having ordained man through Thy wisdom, that he should have dominion over the creatures which Thou hast made [2510] .' And these, being creatures, are also said to be created, as we may further hear from the Lord, who says, 'He who created them, made them male and female [2511] ;' and from Moses in the Song, who writes, 'Ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one side of heaven unto the other [2512] .' And Paul in Colossians, 'Who is the Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature, for in Him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created through Him, and for Him, and He is before all [2513] .'
[2506] He seems here to say that it is both true that 'The Lord created,' and yet that the Son was not created. Creatures alone are created, and He was not a creature. Rather something belonging or relating to Him, something short of His substance or nature, was created. However, it is a question in controversy whether even His Manhood can be called a creature, though many of the Fathers (including Athan. in several places) seem so to call it. On the whole it would appear, (1.) that if 'creature,' like 'Son,' be a personal term, He is not a creature; but if it be a word of nature, He is a creature; (2.) that our Lord is a creature in respect to the flesh (vid. infr. 47); (3.) that since the flesh is infinitely beneath His divinity, it is neither natural nor safe to call Him a creature (cf. Thom. Aq. Sum. Th. iii. xvi. 8, 'non dicimus, quod AEthiops est albus, sed quod est albus secundum dentes') and (4.) that, if the flesh is worshipped, still it is worshipped as in the Person of the Son, not by a separate act of worship. Cf. infr. Letter 60. ad Adelph. 3. Epiph. has imitated this passage, Ancor. 51. introducing the illustration of a king and his robe, &c.
[2507] to legomenon ktizesthai te phusei kai te ousi& 139; ktisma. also infr. 60. Without meaning that the respective terms are synonymous, is it not plain that in a later phraseology this would have been, 'not simply that He is in His Person a creature,' or 'that His Person is created?' Athan.'s use of the phrase ousia tou logou has already been noticed, supr. i. 45, and passages from this Oration are given in another connexion, supr. p. 70, note 15. The term is synonymous with the Divine Nature as existing in the Person of the Word. [Cf. Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3 (2) b.] In the passage in the text the ousia of the Word is contrasted to the ousia of creatures; and it is observable that it is implied that our Lord has not taken on Him a created ousia. 'He said not, Athan. remarks, 'I became a creature, for the creatures have a created essence;' he adds that 'He created' signifies, not essence, but something taking place in Him peri ekeinon, i.e. some adjunct or accident (e.g. notes on de Decr. 22), or as he says supr. S:8, envelopment or dress. And infr. S:51, he contrasts the ousia and the anthropinon of the Word; as in Orat. i. 41. ousia and he anthropotes; and phusis and sarx, iii. 34. init. and logos and sarx, 38. init. And He speaks of the Son 'taking on Him the economy,' infr. 76, and of the hupostasis tou logou being one with ho anthropos, iv. 25, c. It is observed, S:8, note, how this line of teaching might be wrested to the purposes of the Apollinarian and Eutychian heresies; and, considering Athan.'s most emphatic protests against their errors in his later works, as well as his strong statements in Orat. iii. there is no hazard in this admission. His ordinary use of anthropos for the manhood might quite as plausibly be perverted on the other hand into a defence of Nestorianism. Vid. also the Ed. Ben. on S. Hilary, praef. p. xliii. who uses natura absolutely for our Lord's Divinity, as contrasted to the dispensatio, and divides His titles into naturalia and assumpta.
[2508] Ps. civ. 24. LXX.; Rom. viii. 22.
[2509] Rev. viii. 9; 1 Tim. iv. 4.
[2510] Wisd. ix. 2.
[2511] Matt. xix. 4. (ho ktisas).
[2512] Deut. iv. 32.
[2513] Col. i. 15-17
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=119
