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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 20
16. How full of irreligion this is, I consider none can doubt who has ever so little understanding. But since they mutter something about Word and Wisdom being only names of the Son [857] , we must ask then, If these are only names of the Son, He must be something else beside them. And if He is higher than the names, it is not lawful from the lesser to denote the higher; but if He be less than the names, yet He surely must have in Him the principle of this more honourable appellation; and this implies his advance, which is an irreligion equal to anything that has gone before. For He who is in the Father, and in whom also the Father is, who says, 'I and the Father are one [858] ,' whom he that hath seen, hath seen the Father, to say that He has been exalted [859] by anything external, is the extreme of madness. However, when they are beaten hence, and like Eusebius and his fellows, are in these great straits, then they have this remaining plea, which Arius too in ballads, and in his own Thalia [860] , fabled, as a new difficulty: 'Many words speaketh God; which then of these are we to call Son and Word, Only-begotten of the Father [861] ?' Insensate, and anything but Christians [862] ! for first, on using such language about God, they conceive of Him almost as a man, speaking and reversing His first words by His second, just as if one Word from God were not sufficient for the framing of all things at the Father's will, and for His providential care of all. For His speaking many words would argue a feebleness in them all, each needing the service of the other. But that God should have one Word, which is the true doctrine, both shews the power of God, and the perfection of the Word that is from Him, and the religious understanding of them who thus believe.
[857] Arius said, as the Eunomians after him, that the Son was not really, but only called, Word and Wisdom, which were simply attributes of God, and the prototypes of the Son. Vid. Socr. i. 6. Theod. H. E. i. 3, and infr. Orat. ii. 37, 38.
[858] John x. 30.
[859] beltiousthai
[860] Vid. de Syn. S:15.
[861] As the Arians took the title Son in that part of its earthly sense in which it did not apply to our Lord, so they misinterpreted the title Word also; which denoted the Son's immateriality and indivisible presence in the Father, but did not express His perfection. Vid. Orat. ii. S:34-36. contr. Gent. 41. ad Ep. Aeg. 16. Epiph. Haer. 65. 3. Nyss. in Eun. xii. p. 349. Origen (in a passage, however, of questionable doctrine), says, 'As there are gods many, but to us one God the Father, and many lords, but to us one Lord Jesus Christ, so there are many words, but we pray that in us may exist the Word that was in the beginning, with God, and was God.' In Joan. tom. ii. 3. 'Many things, it is acknowledged, does the Father speak to the Son,' say the Semiarians at Ancyra, 'but the words which God speaks to the Son, are not sons. They are not substances of God, but vocal energies; but the Son, though a Word, is not such, but, being a Son, is a substance.' Epiph. Haer. 73. 12. The Semiarians are speaking against Sabellianism, which took the same ground here as Arianism; so did the heresy of the Samosatene, who according to Epiphanius, considered our Lord as the internal Word, or thought. Haer. 65. The term word in this inferior sense is often in Greek rhema. Epiph. supr. and Cyril, de Incarn. Unig. init. t. v. i. p. 679.
[862] 'If they understood and acknowledged the characteristic idea (charaktera) of Christianity, they would not have said that the Lord of glory was a creature.' Ad Serap. ii. 7. In Orat. i. S:2, he says, Arians are not Christians because they are Arians, for Christians are called, not from Arius, but from Christ, who is their only Master. Vid. also de Syn. S:38. init. Sent. D. fin. Ad Afros. 4. Their cruelty and cooperation with the heathen populace was another reason. Greg. Naz. Orat. 25. 12.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=20
