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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 81
6. For consider how grave an error it is, to call God's Word a work. Solomon says in one place in Ecclesiastes, that 'God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil [2248] .' If then the Word be a work, do you mean that He as well as others will be brought into judgment? and what room is there for judgment, when the Judge is on trial? who will give to the just their blessing, who to the unworthy their punishment, the Lord, as you must suppose, standing on trial with the rest? by what law shall He, the Lawgiver, Himself be judged? These things are proper to the works, to be on trial, to be blessed and to be punished by the Son. Now then fear the Judge, and let Solomon's words convince you. For if God shall bring the works one and all into judgment, but the Son is not in the number of things put on trial, but rather is Himself the Judge of works one and all, is not the proof clearer than the sun, that the Son is not a work but the Father's Word, in whom all the works both come to be and come into judgment? Further, if the expression, 'Who was faithful,' is a difficulty to them, from the thought that 'faithful' is used of Him as of others, as if He exercises faith and so receives the reward of faith, they must proceed at this rate to find fault with Moses for saying, 'God faithful and true [2249] ,' and with St. Paul for writing, 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able [2250] .' But when the saints spoke thus, they were not thinking of God in a human way, but they acknowledged two senses of the word 'faithful' in Scripture, first 'believing,' then 'trustworthy,' of which the former belongs to man, the latter to God. Thus Abraham was faithful, because He believed God's word; and God faithful, for, as David says in the Psalm, 'The Lord is faithful in all His words [2251] ,' or is trustworthy, and cannot lie. Again, 'If any faithful woman have widows [2252] ,' she is so called for her right faith; but, 'It is a faithful saying [2253] ,' because what He hath spoken has a claim on our faith, for it is true, and is not otherwise. Accordingly the words, 'Who is faithful to Him that made Him,' implies no parallel with others, nor means that by having faith He became well-pleasing; but that, being Son of the True God, He too is faithful, and ought to be believed in all He says and does, Himself remaining unalterable and not changed [2254] in His human Economy and fleshly presence.
[2248] Eccles. xii. 14.
[2249] Combines Greek of Deut. xxxii. 4 and Ex. xxxiv. 6; cf. Rev. iii. 14.
[2250] 1 Cor. x. 13.
[2251] Ps. cxlv. 14. LXX.
[2252] 1 Tim. v. 16.
[2253] Tit. iii. 8, &c.
[2254] atreptos kai me alloioumenos; vid. supr. de Decr. 14. it was the tendency of Arianism to consider that in the Incarnation some such change actually was undergone by the Word, as they had from the first maintained in the abstract was possible; that whereas He was in nature treptos, He was in fact alloioumenos. This was implied in the doctrine that His superhuman nature supplied the place of a soul in His manhood. Hence the semi-Arian Sirmian Creed anathematizes those who said, ton logon tropen hupomemenekota, vid. De Syn. 27. 12). This doctrine connected them with the Apollinarian and Eutychian Schools, to the former of which Athan. compares them, contr. Apoll. i. 12. while, as opposing the latter, Theodoret entities his first Dialogue ,'Atreptos
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians.asp?pg=81
