Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 35

The Father is in the Son, the Son in the Father: there is 'coinherence.' On the other hand, the Word is God derivatively not absolutely, ;;O logos en pros ton Theon, kai Theos en ho Logos. The Son is Theos, the Father alone ho Theos. He is of one ousia with the Father as compared with the creatures; but as contrasted with the Father, Who may be regarded as ep(TM)keina ousias [18] , and Who alone is autotheos, autoagathos, alethinos theos, the Son is ho deuteros theos (Cels. v. 39, cf. Philo's deutereuon theos). As the Son of God, He is contrasted with all geneta; as contrasted with the Ingenerate Father, He stands at the head of the series of genneta; He is metaxu tes tou agen[n]etou kai tes ton geneton phuseos [19] . He even explains the Unity of the Father and the Son as moral (duo te hupostasei pragmata hen de te homonoi& 139; kai te tautoteti tou boulematos, Cels. viii. 12). The Son takes His place even in the cosmic process from Unity to Unity through Plurality, 'God is in every respect One and Simple, but the Saviour by reason of the Many becomes Many' (on John i. 22, cf. Index to this vol., s.v. Christ). The Spirit is subordinated to the Son, the Son to the Father (elatton para ton patera ho hui& 232;s...eti de hetton to pneuma to hagion, Princ. I. 3, 5 Gk.), while to the Spirit are subordinated created spirits, whose goodness is relative in comparison with God, and the fall of some of whom led to the creation of matter (see above). Unlike the Son and the Spirit they are mutable in will, subject to prokope, capable of embodiment even if in themselves immaterial.

The above slender sketch of the leading thoughts of Origen will suffice to show how intimately his doctrine of the Person of Christ hangs together with his philosophy of Religion and Nature. That philosophy is the philosophy of his age, and must be judged relatively. His deeply religious, candid, piercing spirit embodies the highest effort of the Christian intellect conditioned by the categories of the best thought of his age.

[18] See Newman's note Ar. p. 186, where the additions in brackets seriously modify his statement in the text. Also cf. infr. ch. iv. S:3, and Bigg, p. 179, note 2.

[19] Cels. iii. 34, cf. Alexander's mesiteuousa phusis monogenes. But observe that the passage insisted on by Shedd, 294, heteros kat' ousian kai hupokeimenon ho hui& 232;s tou patros, does not bear the sense he extracts from it. ousia here is not 'essence' but 'hypostasis'.

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