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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 29
Chapter VI.--Authorities in Support of the Council. Theognostus; Dionysius of Alexandria; Dionysius of Rome; Origen.
25. This then is the sense in which they who met at Nicaea made use of these expressions. But next that they did not invent them for themselves (since this is one of their excuses), but spoke what they had received from their predecessors, proceed we to prove this also, to cut off even this excuse from them. Know then, O Arians, foes of Christ, that Theognostus [922] , a learned man, did not decline the phrase 'of the essence,' for in the second book of his Hypotyposes, he writes thus of the Son:--
"The essence of the Son is not one procured from without, nor accruing out of nothing [923] , but it sprang from the Father's essence, as the radiance of light, as the vapour [924] of water; for neither the radiance, nor the vapour, is the water itself or the sun itself, nor is it alien; but it is an effluence of the Father's essence, which, however, suffers no partition. For as the sun remains the same, and is not impaired by the rays poured forth by it, so neither does the Father's essence suffer change, though it has the Son as an Image of Itself [925] ."
[922] Athanasius elsewhere calls him 'the admirable and excellent.' ad Serap. iv. 9. He was Master of the Catechetical school of Alexandria towards the end of the third century, being a scholar, or at least a follower of Origen. His seven books of Hypotyposes treated of the Holy Trinity, of angels, and evil spirits, of the Incarnation, and the Creation. Photius, who gives this account, Cod. 106, accuses him of heterodoxy on these points; which Athanasius in a measure admits, as far as the wording of his treatise went, when he speaks of his 'investigating by way of exercise.' Eusebius does not mention him at all. [His remains in Routh, Rell. iii. 409-414.]
[923] Vid. above S:15. fin. 'God was alone,' says Tertullian, 'because there was nothing external to Him, extrinsecus; yet not even then alone, for He had with Him, what He had in Himself, His Reason.' in Prax. 5. Non per adoptionem spiritus filius fit extrinsecus, sed natura filius est. Origen. Periarch. i. 2. n. 4.
[924] From Wisdom vii. 25. and so Origen, Periarch. i. 2. n. 5. and 9. and Athan. de Sent. Dionys. 15.
[925] It is sometimes erroneously supposed that such illustrations as this are intended to explain how the Sacred Mystery in question is possible, whereas they are merely intended to shew that the words we use concerning it are not self-contradictory, which is the objection most commonly brought against them. To say that the doctrine of the Son's generation does not intrench upon the Father's perfection and immutability, or negative the Son's eternity, seems at first sight inconsistent with what the words Father and Son mean, till another image is adduced, such as the sun and radiance, in which that alleged inconsistency is seen to exist in fact. Here one image corrects another; and the accumulation of images is not, as is often thought, the restless and fruitless effort of the mind to enter into the Mystery, but is a safeguard against any one image, nay, any collection of images being supposed sufficient. If it be said that the language used concerning the sun and its radiance is but popular not philosophical, so again the Catholic language concerning the Holy Trinity may, nay must be, economical, not adequate, conveying the truth, not in the tongues of angels, but under human modes of thought and speech.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=29
