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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 43
39. What then has persuaded you to contradict each other, and to procure to yourselves so great a disgrace? You cannot give any good account of it; this supposition only remains, that all you do is but outward profession and pretence, to secure the patronage of Constantius and the gain from thence accruing. And ye make nothing of accusing the Fathers, and ye complain outright of the expressions as being unscriptural; and, as it is written, 'opened your legs to every one that passed by' (Ez. xvi. 25); so as to change as often as they wish, in whose pay and keep you are. Yet, though a man use terms not in Scripture, it makes no difference so that his meaning be religious [3621] . But the heretic, though he use scriptural terms, yet, as being equally dangerous and depraved, shall be asked in the words of the Spirit, 'Why dost thou preach My laws, and takest My covenant in thy mouth' (Ps. l. 16)? Thus whereas the devil, though speaking from the Scriptures, is silenced by the Saviour, the blessed Paul, though he speaks from profane writers, 'The Cretans are always liars,' and, 'For we are His offspring,' and, 'Evil communications corrupt good manners,' yet has a religious meaning, as being holy,--is 'doctor of the nations, in faith and verity,' as having 'the mind of Christ' (Tit. i. 12; Acts xvii. 28; 1 Cor. xv. 33; 1 Tim. ii. 7; 1 Cor. ii. 16), and what he speaks, he utters religiously. What then is there even plausible, in the Arian terms, in which the 'caterpillar' (Joel ii. 25) and the 'locust' are preferred to the Saviour, and He is reviled with 'Once Thou wast not,' and 'Thou wast created,' and 'Thou art foreign to God in essence,' and, in a word, no irreverence is unused among them? But what did the Fathers omit in the way of reverence? or rather, have they not a lofty view and a Christ-loving religiousness? And yet these, they wrote, 'We reject;' while those others they endure in their insults towards the Lord, and betray to all men, that for no other cause do they resist that great Council but that it condemned the Arian heresy. For it is on this account again that they speak against the term Coessential, about which they also entertain wrong sentiments. For if their faith was right, and they confessed the Father as truly Father, believed the Son to be genuine Son, and by nature true Word and Wisdom of the Father, and as to saying that the Son is 'from God,' if they did not use the words of Him, as of themselves, but understood Him to be the proper offspring of the Father's essence, as the radiance is from light, they would not every one of them have found fault with the Fathers; but would have been confident that the Council wrote suitably; and that this is the right faith concerning our Lord Jesus Christ.
[3621] Vid. p. 162, note 8. Cf. Greg. Naz. Orat. 31. 24. vid. also Hil. contr. Constant. 16. August. Ep. 238. n. 4-6. Cyril. Dial. i. p. 391. Petavius refers to other passages. de Trin. v. 5. S:6.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=43
