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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 11
If in the first, which belongs to those who gain the name by grace from moral improvement, and receive power to become sons of God (for this is what their predecessors said), then He would seem to differ from us in nothing; no, nor would He be Only-begotten, as having obtained the title of Son as others from His virtue. For granting what they say, that, whereas His qualifications were fore-known [781] , He therefore received grace from the first, the name, and the glory of the name, from His very first beginning, still there will be no difference between Him and those who receive the name after their actions, so long as this is the ground on which He as others has the character of son. For Adam too, though he received grace from the first, and upon his creation was at once placed in paradise, differed in no respect either from Enoch, who was translated thither after some time from his birth on his pleasing God, or from the Apostle, who likewise was caught up to Paradise after his actions; nay, not from him who once was a thief, who on the ground of his confession, received a promise that he should be forthwith in paradise.
7. When thus pressed, they will perhaps make an answer which has brought them into trouble many times already; "We consider that the Son has this prerogative over others, and therefore is called Only-begotten, because He alone was brought to be by God alone, and all other things were created by God through the Son [782] ." Now I wonder who it was [783] that suggested to you so futile and novel an idea as that the Father alone wrought with His own hand the Son alone, and that all other things were brought to be by the Son as by an under-worker. If for the toil's sake God was content with making the Son only, instead of making all things at once, this is an irreligious thought, especially in those who know the words of Esaias, 'The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, hungereth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His understanding [784] .' Rather it is He who gives strength to the hungry, and through His Word refreshes the labouring [785] . Again, it is irreligious to suppose that He disdained, as if a humble task, to form the creatures Himself which came after the Son; for there is no pride in that God, who goes down with Jacob into Egypt, and for Abraham's sake corrects Abimelek because of Sara, and speaks face to face with Moses, himself a man, and descends upon Mount Sinai, and by His secret grace fights for the people against Amalek. However, you are false even in this assertion, for 'He made us, and not we ourselves [786] .' He it is who through His Word made all things small and great, and we may not divide the creation, and says this is the Father's, and this the Son's, but they are of one God, who uses His proper Word as a Hand [787] , and in Him does all things. This God Himself shews us, when He says, 'All these things hath My Hand made [788] ;' while Paul taught us as he had learned [789] , that 'There is one God, from whom all things; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things [790] .' Thus He, always as now, speaks to the sun and it rises, and commands the clouds and it rains upon one place; and where it does not rain, it is dried up. And He bids the earth yield her fruits, and fashions Jeremias [791] in the womb. But if He now does all this, assuredly at the beginning also He did not disdain to make all things Himself through the Word; for these are but parts of the whole.
[781] Theod. Hist. i. 3.
[782] This is celebrated as an explanation of the Anomoeans. vid. Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 20, 21. though Athan. speaks of it as belonging to the elder Arians. vid. Socr. Hist. i. 6.
[783] i.e. what is your authority? is it not a novel, and therefore a wrong doctrine? vid. infr. S:13. ad Serap. i. 3. Also Orat. i. S:8. 'Who ever heard such doctrine? or whence or from whom did they hear it? who, when they were under catechising, spoke thus to them? If they themselves confess that they now hear it for the first time, they must grant that their heresy is alien, and not from the Fathers.' vid. ii. S:34. and Socr. i. 6. p. 11 c.
[784] Is. xl. 28.
[785] Ib. 29
[786] Ps. c. 3.
[787] Vid. infr. S:17 Orat. ii. S:31. 71. Irenaeus calls the Son and Holy Spirit the Hands of God. Haer. iv. praef. vid. also Hilar. de Trin. vii. 22. This image is in contrast to that of instrument, organon, which the Arians would use of the Son. vid. Socr. i. 6. p. 11, as implying He was external to God, whereas the word Hand implies His consubstantiality with the Father.
[788] Is. lxvi. 2.
[789] mathon edidasken, implying the traditional nature of the teaching. And so S. Paul himself, 1 Cor. xv. 3, vid. for an illustration, supr. S:5. init. also note 2.
[790] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
[791] Jer. i. 5.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=11
