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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 77
2. If then He be not a Son, let Him be called a work, and let all that is said of works be said of Him, nor let Him and Him alone be called Son, nor Word, nor Wisdom; neither let God be called Father, but only Framer and Creator of things which by Him come to be; and let the creature be Image and Expression of His framing will, and let Him, as they would have it, be without generative nature, so that there be neither Word, nor Wisdom, no, nor Image, of His proper substance. For if He be not Son [2224] , neither is He Image [2225] . But if there be not a Son, how then say you that God is a Creator? since all things that come to be are through the Word and in Wisdom, and without This nothing can be, whereas you say He hath not That in and through which He makes all things. For if the Divine Essence be not fruitful itself [2226] , but barren, as they hold, as a light that lightens not, and a dry fountain, are they not ashamed to speak of His possessing framing energy? and whereas they deny what is by nature, do they not blush to place before it what is by will [2227] ? But if He frames things that are external to Him and before were not, by willing them to be, and becomes their Maker, much more will He first be Father of an Offspring from His proper Essence. For if they attribute to God the willing about things which are not, why recognise they not that in God which lies above the will? now it is a something that surpasses will, that He should be by nature, and should be Father of His proper Word. If then that which comes first, which is according to nature, did not exist, as they would have it in their folly, how could that which is second come to be, which is according to will? for the Word is first, and then the creation. On the contrary the Word exists, whatever they affirm, those irreligious ones; for through Him did creation come to be, and God, as being Maker, plainly has also His framing Word, not external, but proper to Him;--for this must be repeated. If He has the power of will, and His will is effective, and suffices for the consistence of the things that come to be, and His Word is effective, and a Framer, that Word must surely be the living Will [2228] of the Father, and an essential [2229] energy, and a real Word, in whom all things both consist and are excellently governed. No one can even doubt, that He who disposes is prior to the disposition and the things disposed. And thus, as I said, God's creating is second to His begetting; for Son implies something proper to Him and truly from that blessed and everlasting Essence; but what is from His will, comes into consistence from without, and is framed through His proper Offspring who is from It.
[2224] S:22, note.
[2225] i.e. in any true sense of the word 'image;' or, so that He may be accounted the aparallaktos eikon of the Father, vid. de Syn. 23, note 1. The ancient Fathers consider, that the Divine Sonship is the very consequence (so to speak) of the necessity that exists, that One who is Infinite Perfection should subsist again in a Perfect Image of Himself, which is the doctrine to which Athan. goes on to allude, and the idea of which (he says) is prior to that of creation. A redundatio in imaginem is synonymous with a generatio Filii. Cf. Thomassin, de Trin. 19. 1.
[2226] For karpogonos he ousia, de Decr. 15. n. 9. gennetikos, Orat. iii. 66. iv. 4. fin. agonos. i. 14. fin. Sent. Dion. 15. 19. he phusike gonimotes, Damasc. F. O. i. 8. p. 133. akarpos, Cyr. Thes. p. 45. Epiph. Haer. 65 p. 609. b. Vid. the gennesis and the ktisis contrasted together Orat. i. 29. de Decr. 11. n. 6, de Syn. 51, n. 4. The doctrine in the text is shortly expressed, infr. Orat. iv. 4 fin. ei agonos kai anenergetos
[2227] Orat. iii. 59, &c.
[2228] Orat. iii. 63. c.
[2229] enousios, infr. 28.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=77
