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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 12
8. But let us suppose that the other creatures could not endure to be wrought by the absolute Hand of the Unoriginate [792] and therefore the Son alone was brought into being by the Father alone, and other things by the Son as an underworker and assistant, for this is what Asterius the sacrificer [793] has written, and Arius has transcribed [794] and bequeathed to his own friends, and from that time they use this form of words, broken reed as it is, being ignorant, the bewildered men, how brittle it is. For if it was impossible for things originate to bear the hand of God, and you hold the Son to be one of their number, how was He too equal to this formation by God alone? and if a Mediator became necessary that things originate might come to be, and you hold the Son to be originated, then must there have been some medium before Him, for His creation; and that Mediator himself again being a creature, it follows that he too needed another Mediator for his own constitution. And though we were to devise another, we must first devise his Mediator, so that we shall never come to an end. And thus a Mediator being ever in request, never will the creation be constituted, because nothing originate, as you say, can bear the absolute hand of the Unoriginate [795] . And if, on your perceiving the extravagance of this, you begin to say that the Son, though a creature, was made capable of being made by the Unoriginate, then it follows that other things also, though originated, are capable of being wrought immediately by the Unoriginate; for the Son too is but a creature in your judgment, as all of them. And accordingly the origination of the Word is superfluous, according to your irreligious and futile imagination, God being sufficient for the immediate formation of all things, and all things originate being capable of sustaining His absolute hand.
These irreligious men then having so little mind amid their madness, let us see whether this particular sophism be not even more irrational than the others. Adam was created alone by God alone through the Word; yet no one would say that Adam had any prerogative over other men, or was different from those who came after him, granting that he alone was made and fashioned by God alone, and we all spring from Adam, and consist according to succession of the race, so long as he was fashioned from the earth as others, and at first not being, afterwards came to be.
[792] Orat. ii. S:24. fin.
[793] Vid. infr. 20. Orat. i. S:31. ii. S:S:24, 28. 37. 40. iii. S:S:2. 60. de Synod S:S:18. 19. [Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3 (2) a.]
[794] Vid. also infr. S:20. de Synod. S:17.
[795] Vid. infr. S:24. Orat. i. S:15. fin. ii. S:29. Epiph. Haer. 76. p. 951.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=12
