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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 16
12. The case being thus, let who will among them consider the matter, so that one may abash them by the following question; Is it right to say that what is God's offspring and proper to Him is out of nothing? or is it reasonable in the very idea, that what is from God has accrued to Him, that a man should dare to say that the Son is not always? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends the thoughts of man, that we become fathers of our own children in time, since we ourselves first were not and then came into being; but God, in that He ever is, is ever Father of the Son [821] . And the origination of mankind is brought home to us from things that are parallel; but, since 'no one knoweth the Son but the Father, and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him [822] ,' therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed Him, have given us a certain image from things visible, saying, 'Who is the brightness of His glory, and the Expression of His Person [823] ;' and again, 'For with Thee is the well of life, and in Thy light shall we see light [824] ;' and when the Word chides Israel, He says, 'Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom [825] ;' and this Fountain it is which says, 'They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters [826] .' And mean indeed and very dim is the illustration [827] compared with what we desiderate; but yet it is possible from it to understand something above man's nature, instead of thinking the Son's generation to be on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was not, so that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that the Son was not before His generation? or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void of life, that he should madly say, 'The Son is from nothing,' who says, 'I am the life [828] ,' or 'alien to the Father's essence,' who, says, 'He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father [829] ?' for the sacred writers wishing us thus to understand, have given these illustrations; and it is unseemly and most irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others which are neither in Scripture, nor have any religious bearing.
[821] 'Man,' says S. Cyril, 'inasmuch as he had a beginning of being, also has of necessity a beginning of begetting, as what is from him is a thing generate, but....if God's essence transcend time, or origin, or interval, His generation too will transcend these; nor does it deprive the Divine Nature of the power of generating, that it doth not this in time. For other than human is the manner of divine generation; and together with God's existing is His generating implied, and the Son was in Him by generation, nor did His generation precede His existence, but He was always, and that by generation.' Thesaur. v. p. 35.
[822] Matt. xi. 27.
[823] Heb. i. 3.
[824] Ps. xxxvi. 9.
[825] Bar. iii. 12.
[826] Jer. ii. 13. Vid. infr. passim. All these titles, 'Word, Wisdom, Light' &c., serve to guard the title 'Son' from any notions of parts or dimensions, e.g. 'He is not composed of parts, but being impassible and single, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the Son...for...the Word and Wisdom is neither creature, nor part of Him Whose Word He is, nor an offspring passibly begotten.' Orat. i. S:28.
[827] Ad Serap. 20.
[828] John xiv. 6.
[829] Ib. 9
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=16
