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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 121
47. For the very passage proves that it is only an invention of your own to call the Lord creature. For the Lord, knowing His own Essence to be the Only-begotten Wisdom and Offspring of the Father, and other than things originate and natural creatures, says in love to man, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways,' as if to say, 'My Father hath prepared for Me a body, and has created Me for men in behalf of their salvation.' For, as when John says, 'The Word was made flesh [2520] ,' we do not conceive the whole Word Himself to be flesh [2521] , but to have put on flesh and become man, and on hearing, 'Christ hath become a curse for us,' and 'He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin [2522] ,' we do not simply conceive this, that whole Christ has become curse and sin, but that He has taken on Him the curse which lay against us (as the Apostle has said, 'Has redeemed us from the curse,' and 'has carried,' as Isaiah has said, 'our sins,' and as Peter has written, 'has borne them in the body on the wood [2523] '); so, if it is said in the Proverbs 'He created,' we must not conceive that the whole Word is in nature a creature, but that He put on the created body [2524] and that God created Him for our sakes, preparing for Him the created body, as it is written, for us, that in Him we might be capable of being renewed and deified. What then deceived you, O senseless, to call the Creator a creature? or whence did you purchase for you this new thought, to parade it [2525] ? For the Proverbs say 'He created,' but they call not the Son creature, but Offspring; and, according to the distinction in Scripture aforesaid of 'He created' and 'creature,' they acknowledge, what is by nature proper to the Son, that He is the Only-begotten Wisdom and Framer of the creatures, and when they say 'He created,' they say it not in respect of His Essence, but signify that He was becoming a beginning of many ways; so that 'He created' is in contrast to 'Offspring,' and His being called the 'Beginning of ways [2526] ' to His being the Only-begotten Word.
[2520] John i. 14.
[2521] S:10. n. 6.
[2522] Gal. iii. 13; 2 Cor. v. 21.
[2523] Gal. iii. 13; Is. liii. 4; 1 Pet. ii. 24
[2524] Here he says that, though our Lord's flesh is created or He is created as to the flesh, it is not right to call Him a creature. This is very much what S. Thomas says, as referred to in S:45, note 1, in the words of the Schools, that AEthiops, albus secundum dentes, non est albus. But why may not our Lord be so called upon the principle of the communicatio Idiomatum (infr. note on iii. 31.) as He is said to be born of a Virgin, to have suffered, &c.? The reason is this:--birth, passion, &c., confessedly belong to His human nature, without adding 'according to the flesh;' but 'creature' not implying humanity, might appear a simple attribute of His Person, if used without limitation. Thus, as S. Thomas adds, though we may not absolutely say AEthiops est albus, we may say 'crispus est,' or in like manner, 'calvus est.' Since crispus, or calvus, can but refer to the hair. Still more does this remark apply in the case of 'Sonship,' which is a personal attribute altogether; as is proved, says Petav. de Incarn. vii. 6 fin. by the instance of Adam, who was in all respects a man like Seth, yet not a son. Accordingly, we may not call our Lord, even according to the manhood, an adopted Son.
[2525] pompeuete, infr. 82.
[2526] archen hodon; and so in Justin's Tryph. 61. The Bened. Ed. in loc. refers to a similar application of the word to our Lord in Tatian contr. Gent. 5. Athenag. Ap. 10. Iren. Haer. iv. 20. n. 3. Origen. in Joan. tom. 1. 39. Tertull. adv. Prax. 6. and Ambros. de Fid. iii. 7.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=121
