|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
56 Pages
Page 39
35. But this is more like the crime of the Sadducees, and of those among the Greeks who had the name of Atheists. It follows that you will deny that even creation is the handy-work of God Himself that is; at least, if 'Father' and 'God' do not signify the very essence of Him that is, but something else, which you imagine: which is irreligious, and most shocking even to think of. But if, when we hear it said, 'I am that I am,' and, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,' and, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord,' and, 'Thus saith the Lord Almighty' (Ex. iii. 14; Gen. i. 1; Deut. vi. 4), we understand nothing else than the very simple, and blessed, and incomprehensible essence itself of Him that is, (for though we be unable to master what He is, yet hearing 'Father,' and 'God,' and 'Almighty,' we understand nothing else to be meant than the very essence of Him that is [3610] ); and if ye too have said, that the Son is from God, it follows that you have said that He is from the 'essence' of the Father. And since the Scriptures precede you which say, that the Lord is Son of the Father, and the Father Himself precedes them, who says, 'This is My beloved Son' (Matt. iii. 17), and a son is no other than the offspring from his father, is it not evident that the Fathers have suitably said that the Son is from the Father's essence? considering that it is all one to say rightly 'from God,' and to say 'from the essence.' For all the creatures, though they be said to have come into being from God, yet are not from God as the Son is; for they are not offsprings in their nature, but works. Thus, it is said, 'in the beginning God,' not 'generated,' but 'made the heaven and the earth, and all that is in them' (Gen. i. 1). And not, 'who generates,' but 'who maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire' (Ps. civ. 4). And though the Apostle has said, 'One God, from whom all things' (1 Cor. viii. 6), yet he says not this, as reckoning the Son with other things; but, whereas some of the Greeks consider that the creation was held together by chance, and from the combination of atoms [3611] ; and spontaneously from elements of similar structure [3612] , and has no cause; and others consider that it came from a cause, but not through the Word; and each heretic has imagined things at his will, and tells his fables about the creation; on this account the Apostle was obliged to introduce 'from God,' that he might thereby certify the Maker, and shew that the universe was framed at His will. And accordingly he straightway proceeds: 'And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things' (1 Cor. viii. 6), by way of excepting the Son from that 'all' (for what is called God's work, is all done through the Son; and it is not possible that the things framed should have one origin with their Framer), and by way of teaching that the phrase 'of God,' which occurs in the passage, has a different sense in the case of the works, from what it bears when used of the Son; for He is offspring, and they are works: and therefore He, the Son, is the proper offspring of His essence, but they are the handywork of his will.
[3610] De Decr. 29, note 7.
[3611] Democritus, or Epicurus.
[3612] Anaxagoras.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=39
