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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 12
9. For, behold, we take divine Scripture, and thence discourse with freedom of the religious Faith, and set it up as a light upon its candlestick, saying:--Very Son of the Father, natural and genuine, proper to His essence, Wisdom Only-begotten, and Very and Only Word of God is He; not a creature or work, but an offspring proper to the Father's essence. Wherefore He is very God, existing one [1865] in essence with the very Father; while other beings, to whom He said, 'I said ye are Gods [1866] ,' had this grace from the Father, only by participation [1867] of the Word, through the Spirit. For He is the expression of the Father's Person, and Light from Light, and Power, and very Image of the Father's essence. For this too the Lord has said, 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father [1868] .' And He ever was and is and never was not. For the Father being everlasting, His Word and His Wisdom must be everlasting [1869] . On the other hand, what have these persons to shew us from the infamous Thalia? Or, first of all, let them read it themselves, and copy the tone of the writer; at least the mockery which they will encounter from others may instruct them how low they have fallen; and then let them proceed to explain themselves. For what can they say from it, but that 'God was not always a Father, but became so afterwards; the Son was not always, for He was not before His generation; He is not from the Father, but He, as others, has come into subsistence out of nothing; He is not proper to the Father's essence, for He is a creature and work?' And 'Christ is not very God, but He, as others, was made God by participation; the Son has not exact knowledge of the Father, nor does the Word see the Father perfectly; and neither exactly understands nor knows the Father. He is not the very and only Word of the Father, but is in name only called Word and Wisdom, and is called by grace Son and Power. He is not unalterable, as the Father is, but alterable in nature, as the creatures, and He comes short of apprehending the perfect knowledge of the Father.' Wonderful this heresy, not plausible even, but making speculations against Him that is, that He be not, and everywhere putting forward blasphemy for reverent language! Were any one, after inquiring into both sides, to be asked, whether of the two he would follow in faith, or whether of the two spoke fitly of God,--or rather let them say themselves, these abettors of irreligion, what, if a man be asked concerning God (for 'the Word was God'), it were fit to answer [1870] . For from this one question the whole case on both sides may be determined, what is fitting to say,--He was, or He was not; always, or before His birth; eternal, or from this and from then; true, or by adoption, and from participation and in idea [1871] ; to call Him one of things originated, or to unite Him to the Father; to consider Him unlike the Father in essence, or like and proper to Him; a creature, or Him through whom the creatures were originated; that He is the Father's Word, or that there is another word beside Him, and that by this other He was originated, and by another wisdom; and that He is only named Wisdom and Word, and is become a partaker of this wisdom, and second to it?
[1865] [This is the only occurrence of the word homoousios in these three Discourses.]
[1866] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[1867] de Decr. S:14 fin.; de Syn. S:51.
[1868] John xiv. 9.
[1869] de Decr. 15, note 6.
[1870] That is, 'Let them tell us, is it right to predicate this or to predicate that of God (of one who is God), for such is the Word, viz. that He was from eternity or was created,' &c., &c.
[1871] kat' epinoian, vid. Orat. ii. S:38.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=12
