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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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11 Pages
Page 8
7. The position that the Son is a Creature inconsistent and untenable.
Why then do they go on citing the Synod of Ariminum, at which they were deposed? Why do they reject that of Nicaea, at which their Fathers signed the confession that the Son is of the Father's Essence and coessential with Him? Why do they run about? For now they are at war not only with the bishops who met at Nicaea, but with their own great bishops and their own friends. Whose heirs or successors then are they? How can they call men fathers, whose confession, well and apostolically drawn up, they will not accept? For if they think they can object to it, let them speak, or rather answer, that they may be convicted of falling foul of themselves, whether they believe the Son when He says, 'I and my Father are one,' and 'he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father [3751] .' 'Yes,' they must answer, 'since it is written we believe it.' But if they are asked how they are one, and how he that hath seen the Son hath seen the Father, of course, we suppose they will say, 'by reason of resemblance,' unless they have quite come to agree with those who hold the brother-opinion to theirs, and are called [3752] Anomoeans. But if once more they are asked, 'how is He like?' they brasen it out and say, 'by perfect virtue and harmony, by having the same will with the Father, by not willing what the Father wills not.' But let them understand that one assimilated to God by virtue and will is liable also to the purpose of changing; but the Word is not thus, unless He is 'like' in part, and as we are, because He is not like [God] in essence also. But these characteristics belong to us, who are originate, and of a created nature. For we too, albeit we cannot become like God in essence, yet by progress in virtue imitate God, the Lord granting us this grace, in the words, 'Be ye merciful as your Father is merciful:' 'be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect [3753] .' But that originate things are changeable, no one can deny, seeing that angels transgressed, Adam disobeyed, and all stand in need of the grace of the Word. But a mutable thing cannot be like God who is truly unchangeable, any more than what is created can be like its creator. This is why, with regard to us, the holy man said, 'Lord, who shall be likened unto thee [3754] ,' and 'who among the gods is like unto thee, Lord [3755] ;' meaning by gods those who, while created, had yet become partakers of the Word, as He Himself said, 'If he called them gods to whom the word of God came [3756] .' But things which partake cannot be identical with or similar to that whereof they partake. For example, He said of Himself, 'I and the Father are one [3757] ,' implying that things originate are not so. For we would ask those who allege the Ariminian Synod, whether a created essence can say, 'what things I see my Father make, those I make also [3758] .' For things originate are made and do not make; or else they made even themselves. Why, if, as they say, the Son is a Creature and the Father is His Maker, surely the Son would be His own maker, as He is able to make what the Father makes, as He said. But such a supposition is absurd and utterly untenable, for none can make himself.
[3751] John x. 30, and xiv. 9.
[3752] Cf. de Syn. S:31 (a chapter added after the death of Constantius). The Anomoean sect, headed by Eunomius, and deriving its intellectual impetus from Aetias, belongs to the second generation of the Arian movement (their watchword is characterised as recent in the creed of Nike, 359 a.d.), and was comparatively unfamiliar to Athanasius. Cf. Prolegg. ch. ii. S:8.
[3753] Luke vi. 36; Matt. v. 48.
[3754] Ps. lxxxiii. 1, LXX.
[3755] Ps. lxxxvi. 8.
[3756] John x. 35.
[3757] Ib. x. 30.
[3758] Ib. v. 19: the word poieo is taken in the sense of making.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/ad-afros-epistola-synodica.asp?pg=8
