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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 38
34. For answer, what is much to the purpose, Who are they whom you pretend are offended and troubled at these terms? of those who are religious towards Christ not one; on the contrary they defend and maintain them. But if they are Arians who thus feel, what wonder they should be distressed at words which destroy their heresy? for it is not the terms which offend them, but the proscription of their irreligion which afflicts them. Therefore let us have no more murmuring against the Fathers, nor pretence of this kind; or next [3605] you will be making complaints of the Lord's Cross, because it is 'to Jews an offence and to Gentiles foolishness,' as said the Apostle [3606] (1 Cor. i. 23, 24). But as the Cross is not faulty, for to us who believe it is 'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,' though Jews rave, so neither are the terms of the Fathers faulty, but profitable to those who honestly read, and subversive of all irreligion, though the Arians so often burst with rage as being condemned by them. Since then the pretence that persons are offended does not hold, tell us yourselves, why is it you are not pleased with the phrase 'of the essence' (this must first be enquired about), when you yourselves have written that the Son is generated from the Father? If when you name the Father, or use the word 'God,' you do not signify essence, or understand Him according to essence, who is that He is, but signify something else about Him [3607] , not to say inferior, then you should not have written that the Son was from the Father, but from what is about Him or in Him [3608] ; and so, shrinking from saying that God is truly Father, and making Him compound who is simple, in a material way, you will be authors of a newer blasphemy. And, with such ideas, you must needs consider the Word, and the title 'Son,' not as an essence but as a name [3609] only, and in consequence hold your own views as far as names only, and be talking, not of what you believe to exist, but of what you think not to exist.
[3605] hora. vid. Orat. i. S:15; iv. S:10; Serap. ii. 1. kairos de Decr. S:15. init.
[3606] 'The Apostle' is a common title of S. Paul in antiquity. Cf. August. ad Bonifac. iii. 3.
[3607] Cf. de Decr. 22, note 1.
[3608] De Decr. 24, note 9.
[3609] Vid. supr. Orat. i. S:15; de Decr. S:22, note 1.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=38
