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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 14
10. For if He were called God's Son, and we the Son's sons, their fiction were plausible; but if we too are said to be sons of that God, of whom He is Son, then we too partake the Father [804] , who says, 'I have begotten and exalted children [805] .' For if we did not partake Him, He had not said, 'I have begotten;' but if He Himself begat us, no other than He is our Father [806] . And, as before, it matters not, whether the Son has something more and was made first, but we something less, and were made afterwards, as long as we all partake, and are called sons, of the same Father [807] . For the more or less does not indicate a different nature; but attaches to each according to the practice of virtue; and one is placed over ten cities, another over five; and some sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and others hear the words, 'Come, ye blessed of My Father,' and, 'Well done, good and faithful servant [808] .' With such ideas, however, no wonder they imagine that of such a Son God was not always Father, and such a Son was not always in being, but was generated from nothing as a creature, and was not before His generation; for such an one is other than the True Son of God.
But to persist in such teaching does not consist with piety [809] , for it is rather the tone of thought of Sadducees and the Samosatene [810] ; it remains then to say that the Son of God is so called according to the other sense, in which Isaac was son of Abraham; for what is naturally begotten from any one and does not accrue to him from without, that in the nature of things is a son, and that is what the name implies [811] . Is then the Son's generation one of human affection? (for this perhaps, as their predecessors [812] , they too will be ready to object in their ignorance;)--in no wise; for God is not as man, nor men as God. Men were created of matter, and that passible; but God is immaterial and incorporeal. And if so be the same terms are used of God and man in divine Scripture, yet the clear-sighted, as Paul enjoins, will study it, and thereby discriminate, and dispose of what is written according to the nature of each subject, and avoid any confusion of sense, so as neither to conceive of the things of God in a human way, nor to ascribe the things of man to God [813] . For this were to mix wine with water [814] , and to place upon the altar strange fire with that which is divine.
[804] His argument is, that if the Son but partook the Father in the sense in which we partake the Son, then the Son would not impart to us the Father, but Himself, and would be a separating as well as uniting medium between the Father and us; whereas He brings us so near to the Father, that we are the Father's children, not His, and therefore He must be Himself one with the Father, or the Father must be in Him with an incomprehensible completeness. vid. de Synod. S:51. contr. Gent. 46. fin. Hence S. Augustin says, 'As the Father has life in Himself, so hath He given also to the Son to have life in Himself, not by participating, but in Himself. For we have not life in ourselves, but in our God. But that Father, who has life in Himself, begat a Son such, as to have life in Himself, not to become partaker of life, but to be Himself life; and of that life to make us partakers.' Serm. 127. de Verb. Evang. 9.
[805] Is. i. 2.
[806] 'To say God is wholly partaken, is the same as saying that God begets.' Orat. i. S:16. And in like manner, our inferior participation involves such sonship as is vouchsafed to us.
[807] And so in Orat. ii. S:19-22. 'Though the Son surpassed other things on a comparison, yet He were equally a creature with them; for even in those things which are of a created nature, we may find some things surpassing others. Star, for instance, differs from star in glory, yet it does not follow that some are sovereign, and others serve, &c.' ii. S:20. And so Gregory Nyssen contr. Eunom. iii. p. 132 D. Epiph. Haer. 76. p. 970.
[808] Matt. xxv. 21, 23, 34.
[809] i.e. since it is impossible they can persist in evasions so manifest as these, nothing is left but to take the other sense of the word.
[810] Paul of Samosata [see Prolegg. ch. ii. S:3 (2)a.]
[811] The force lies in the word phusei, 'naturally,' which the Council expressed still more definitely by 'essence.' Thus Cyril says, 'the term "Son" denotes the essential origin from the Father.' Dial. 5. p. 573. And Gregory Nyssen, 'the title "Son" does not simply express the being from another' vid. infra. S:19.), but relationship according to nature. contr. Eunom. ii. p. 91. Again S. Basil says, that Father is 'a term of relationship,' oikeioseos. contr. Eunom. ii. 24. init. And hence he remarks, that we too are properly, kurios, sons of God, as becoming related to Him through works of the Spirit. ii. 23. So also Cyril, loc. cit. Elsewhere S. Basil defines father 'one who gives to another the origin of being according to a nature like his own;' and a son 'one who possesses the origin of being from another by generation,' contr. Eun. ii. 22. On the other hand, the Arians at the first denied that 'by nature there was any Son of God.' Theod. H. E. i. 3. p. 732.
[812] vid. Eusebius, in his Letter, supr. p. 73 sq.: also Socr. Hist. i. 8. Epiphan. Haer. 69. n. 8 and 15.
[813] One of the characteristic points in Athanasius is his constant attention to the sense of doctrine, or the meaning of writers, in preference to the words used. Thus he scarcely uses the symbol homoousion, one in substance, throughout his Orations, and in the de Synod. acknowledges the Semiarians as brethren. Hence infr. S:18. he says, that orthodox doctrine 'is revered by all though expressed in strange language, provided the speaker means religiously, and wishes to convey by it a religious sense.' vid. also S:21. He says, that Catholics are able to 'speak freely,' or to expatiate, parresiazometha, 'out of Divine Scripture.' Orat. i. S:9. vid. de Sent. Dionys. S:20. init. Again: 'The devil spoke from Scripture, but was silenced by the Saviour; Paul spoke from profane writers, yet, being a saint, he has a religious meaning.' de Syn. S:39, also ad Ep. Aeg. 8. Again, speaking of the apparent contrariety between two Councils, 'It were unseemly to make the one conflict with the other, for all their members are fathers; and it were profane to decide that these spoke well and those ill, for all of them have slept in Christ.' S:43. also S:47. Again: 'Not the phrase, but the meaning and the religious life, is the recommendation of the faithful.' ad Ep. Aeg. S:9.
[814] vid. Orat. iii. S:35, and Isa. i. 22.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=14
