St Athanasius the Great FOUR DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS, Part I, Complete

Translated by Cardinal Newman.

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Page 68

Thus S. Hippolytus says,--

Ton de ginomenon archegon kai sumboulon kai ergaten egenna logon, hon logon echon en heauto a& 231;raton te onta to ktizomeno, kosmo, horaton poiei; proteran phonen phthengomenos, kai phos ek photos gennon, proeken te ktisei kurion. contr. Noet. 10.

And S. Theophilus:--

,'Echon oun ho theos ton heautou logon endiatheton en tois idiois splanchnois, egennesen auton meta tes heautou sophias exereuxamenos pro ton holon...hopote de ethelesen ho theos poiesai hosa ebouleusato, touton ton logon egennese prophorikon, prototokon pases ktiseos. ad Autol. ii. 10-22.

Bishop Bull, Defens. F. N. iii. 5-8, meets this representation by maintaining that the gennesis which S. Hippolytus and other writers spoke of, was but a metaphorical generation, the real and eternal truth being shadowed out by a succession of events in the economy of time, such as is the Resurrection (Acts xiii. 33), nay, the Nativity; and that of these His going forth to create the worlds was one. And he maintains (ibid. iii. 9) that such is the mode of speaking adopted by the Fathers after the Nicene Council as well as before. And then he adds (which is our present point), that it is even alluded to and recognised in the Creed of the Council, which anathematizes those who say that 'the Son was not before His generation,' i.e. who deny that 'the Son was before His generation,' which statement accordingly becomes indirectly a Catholic truth.

I am not aware whether any writer has preceded or followed this great authority in this view [2209] . The more obvious mode of understanding the Arian formula is this, that it is an argument ex absurdo, drawn from the force of the word Son, in behalf of the Arian doctrine; it being, as they would say, a truism, that, 'whereas He was begotten, He was not before He was begotten,' and the denial of it a contradiction in terms. This certainly does seem to myself the true force of the formula; so much so, that if Bishop Bull's explanation be admissible, it must, in order to its being so, first be shewn to be reducible to this sense, and to be included under it.

[2209] Waterland expresses the view here taken, and not Bishop Bull's; vol. i. p. 114. Bull's language, on the other hand, is very strong: 'Saepe olim, ut verum ingenue fateai, animum meum subiit admiratio, quid effato isto, 'Filius priusquam nasceretur, non erat,' sibi voluerint Ariani. De nativitate Christi ex beatissima Virgine dictum non esse exponendum constat....Itaque de nativitate Filii loquuntur, quae hujus universi creationem antecessit. Quis vero, inquam, sensus dicti hujus "Filius non erat, sive non existebat, priusquam nasceretur ex Patre ante conditum mundum?" Ego sane nullus dubito, quin hoc pronunciatum Arianorum oppositum fuerit Catholicorum istorum sententiae, qui docerent, Filium quidem paulo ante conditum mundum inexplicabili quodam modo ex Patre progressum fuisse ad constituendum universa, &c. D. F. N. iii. 9. S:2.

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