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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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56 Pages
Page 50
48. Such then, as we confess and believe, being the sense of the Fathers, proceed we even in their company to examine once more the matter, calmly and with a kindly sympathy, with reference to what has been said before, viz. whether the Bishops collected at Nicaea do not really prove to have thought aright. For if the Word be a work and foreign to the Father's essence, so that He is separated from the Father by the difference of nature, He cannot be one in essence with Him, but rather He is homogeneous by nature with the works, though He surpass them in grace [3646] . On the other hand, if we confess that He is not a work but the genuine offspring of the Father's essence, it would follow that He is inseparable from the Father, being connatural, because He is begotten from Him. And being such, good reason He should be called Coessential. Next, if the Son be not such from participation, but is in His essence the Father's Word and Wisdom, and this essence is the offspring of the Father's essence [3647] , and its likeness as the radiance is of the light, and the Son says, 'I and the Father are One,' and, 'he that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father' (John x. 30; xiv. 9), how must we understand these words? or how shall we so explain them as to preserve the oneness of the Father and the Son? Now as to its consisting in agreement [3648] of doctrines, and in the Son's not disagreeing with the Father, as the Arians say, such an interpretation is a sorry one; for both the Saints, and still more Angels and Archangels, have such an agreement with God, and there is no disagreement among them. For he who disagreed, the devil, was beheld to fall from the heavens, as the Lord said. Therefore if by reason of agreement the Father and the Son are one, there would be things originated which had this agreement with God, and each of these might say, 'I and the Father are One.' But if this be absurd, and so it truly is, it follows of necessity that we must conceive of Son's and Father's oneness in the way of essence. For things originate, though they have an agreement with their Maker, yet possess it only by influence [3649] , and by participation, and through the mind; the transgression of which forfeits heaven. But the Son, being an offspring from the essence, is one by essence, Himself and the Father that begat Him.
[3646] De Decr. S:1.
[3647] S:51, note.
[3648] S:23, note 3, yet vid. Hipp. contr. Noet. 7.
[3649] kinesei vid. Cyril. contr. Jul. viii. p. 274. Greg. Nyss. de Hom. Op. p. 87.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/councils.asp?pg=50
