|
HOME | GREEK LANGUAGE |
LIBRARIES |
BLOG | HELP | SEARCH | BOOKSTORE | FREEWARE |
|
|
Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
|
39 Pages
Page 17
13. Therefore let them tell us, from what teacher or by what tradition they derived these notions concerning the Saviour? "We have read," they will say, "in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways unto His works [830] ;'" this Eusebius and his fellows used to insist on [831] , and you write me word, that the present men also, though overthrown and confuted by an abundance of arguments, still were putting about in every quarter this passage, and saying that the Son was one of the creatures, and reckoning Him with things originated. But they seem to me to have a wrong understanding of this passage also; for it has a religious and very orthodox sense, which had they understood, they would not have blasphemed the Lord of glory. For on comparing what has been above stated with this passage, they will find a great difference between them [832] . For what man of right understanding does not perceive, that what are created and made are external to the maker; but the Son, as the foregoing argument has shewn, exists not externally, but from the Father who begat Him? for man too both builds a house and begets a son, and no one would reverse things, and say that the house or the ship were begotten by the builder [833] , but the son was created and made by him; nor again that the house was an image of the maker, but the son unlike him who begat him; but rather he will confess that the son is an image of the father, but the house a work of art, unless his mind be disordered, and he beside himself. Plainly, divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of everything, says through Moses, of the creatures, 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth [834] ;' but of the Son it introduces not another, but the Father Himself saying, 'I have begotten Thee from the womb before the morning star [835] ;' and again, 'Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee [836] .' And the Lord says of Himself in the Proverbs, 'Before all the hills He begets me [837] ;' and concerning things originated and created John speaks, 'All things were made by Him [838] ;' but preaching of the Lord, he says, 'The Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him [839] .' If then son, therefore not creature; if creature, not son; for great is the difference between them, and son and creature cannot be the same, unless His essence be considered to be at once from God, and external to God.
[830] Prov. viii. 22, and cf. Orat. ii. throughout.
[831] Eusebius of Nicomedia quotes it in his Letter to Paulinus, ap. Theodor. Hist. i. 5. And Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstr. Evang. v. 1.
[832] i.e. 'Granting that the prima facie impression of this text is in favour of our Lord's being a creature, yet so many arguments have been already brought, and may be added, against His creation, that we must interpret this text by them. It cannot mean that our Lord was simply created, because we have already shewn that He is not external to His Father.'
[833] Serap. 2, 6. Sent. Dion. S:4.
[834] Gen. i. 1.
[835] Ps. cx. 3.
[836] Ps. ii. 7.
[837] Prov. viii. 25.
[838] John i. 3.
[839] Ib. 18
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=17
