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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 48
For the Son is not related to the Father as he imagined. But the Bishops who anathematized the Arian heresy, understanding Paul's craft, and reflecting that the word 'Coessential' has not this meaning when used of things immaterial [3636] , and especially of God, and acknowledging that the Word was not a creature, but an offspring from the essence, and that the Father's essence was the origin and root and fountain of the Son, and that he was of very truth His Father's likeness, and not of different nature, as we are, and separate from the Father, but that, as being from Him, He exists as Son indivisible, as radiance is with respect to Light, and knowing too the illustrations used in Dionysius's case, the 'fountain,' and the defence of 'Coessential' and before this the Saviour's saying, symbolical of unity [3637] , 'I and the Father are one' and 'he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father' (John x. 30; xiv. 9), on these grounds reasonably asserted on their part, that the Son was Coessential. And as, according to a former remark, no one would blame the Apostle, if he wrote to the Romans about the Law in one way, and to the Hebrews in another; in like manner, neither would the present Bishops find fault with the ancient, having regard to their interpretation, nor again in view of theirs and of the need of their so writing about the Lord, would the ancient censure their successors. Yes surely, each Council has a sufficient reason for its own language; for since the Samosatene held that the Son was not before Mary, but received from her the origin of His being, therefore those who then met deposed him and pronounced him heretic; but concerning the Son's Godhead writing in simplicity, they arrived not at accuracy concerning the Coessential, but, as they understood the word, so spoke they about it. For they directed all their thoughts to destroy the device of the Samosatene, and to shew that the Son was before all things, and that, instead of becoming God from man, He, being God, had put on a servant's form, and being Word, had become flesh, as John says (Phil. ii. 7; Joh. i. 14). This is how they dealt with the blasphemies of Paul; but when Eusebius, Arius, and their fellows said that though the Son was before time, yet was He made and one of the creatures, and as to the phrase 'from God,' they did not believe it in the sense of His being genuine Son from Father, but maintained it as it is said of the creatures, and as to the oneness [3638] of likeness [3639] between the Son and the Father, did not confess that the Son is like the Father according to essence, or according to nature as a son resembles his father, but because of Their agreement of doctrines and of teaching [3640] ; nay, when they drew a line and an utter distinction between the Son's essence and the Father, ascribing to Him an origin of being, other than the Father, and degrading Him to the creatures, on this account the Bishops assembled at Nicaea, with a view to the craft of the parties so thinking, and as bringing together the sense from the Scriptures, cleared up the point, by affirming the 'Coessential;' that both the true genuineness of the Son might thereby be known, and that to things originate might be ascribed nothing in common with Him. For the precision of this phrase detects their pretence, whenever they use the phrase 'from God,' and gets rid of all the subtleties with which they seduce the simple. For whereas they contrive to put a sophistical construction on all other words at their will, this phrase only, as detecting their heresy, do they dread; which the Fathers set down as a bulwark [3641] against their irreligious notions one and all.
[3636] Cf. Soz. iii. 18. The heretical party, starting with the notion in which their heresy in all its shades consisted, that the Son was a distinct being from the Father, concluded that 'like in essence' was the only term which would express the relation of the Son to the Father. Here then the word 'coessential' did just enable the Catholics to join issue with them, as exactly expressing what the Catholics wished to express, viz. that there was no such distinction between Them as made the term 'like' necessary, but that as material parent and offspring are individuals under one common species, so the Eternal Father and Son are Persons under one common individual essence.
[3637] S:49.
[3638] ten tes homoioseos henoteta: and so pp. 163, note 9, 165, 166. And Basil. tautoteta tes phuseos, Ep. 8. 3: [but] tautoteta tes ousias, Cyril in Joan. lib. iii. c. v. p. 302. [cf. tautoousion, p. 315, note 6.] It is uniformly asserted by the Catholics that the Father's godhead, theotes, is the Son's; e.g. infr. S:52; supr. p. 329 b, line 8; p. 333, note 5; Orat. i. 49 fin. ii. S:18. S:73. fin. iii. S:26; iii. S:5 fin. iii. S:53; mian ten theoteta kai to idion tes ousias tou patros. S:56 supr. p. 84 fin. vid. S:52. note. This is an approach to the doctrine of the Una Res, defined in the fourth Lateran Council [in 1215, see Harnack Dogmg. iii. 447, note, and on the doctrine of the Greek Fathers, Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3 (2) b.]
[3639] Vid. Epiph. Haer. 73. 9 fin.
[3640] S:23, note 3.
[3641] epiteichisma; in like manner sundesmon pisteos. Epiph. Ancor. 6; cf. Haer. 69. 70; Ambros. de Fid. iii. 15.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=48
