|
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 31
26. And that the Word of God is not a work or creature, but an offspring proper to the Father's essence and indivisible, as the great Council wrote, here you may see in the words of Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, who, while writing against the Sabellians, thus inveighs against those who dared to say so:--
"Next, I may reasonably turn to those who divide and cut to pieces and destroy that most sacred doctrine of the Church of God, the Divine Monarchy [928] , making it as it were three powers and partitive subsistences [929] and god-heads three. I am told that some among you who are catechists and teachers of the Divine Word, take the lead in this tenet, who are diametrically opposed, so to speak, to Sabellius's opinions; for he blasphemously says that the Son is the Father, and the Father the Son, but they in some sort preach three Gods, as dividing the sacred Monad into three subsistences foreign to each other and utterly separate. For it must needs be that with the God of the Universe, the Divine Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose [930] and habitate in God; thus in one as in a summit, I mean the God of the Universe, must the Divine Triad [931] be gathered up and brought together. For it is the doctrine of the presumptuous Marcion, to sever and divide the Divine Monarchy into three origins,--a devil's teaching, not that of Christ's true disciples and lovers of the Saviour's lessons. For they know well that a Triad is preached by divine Scripture, but that neither Old Testament nor New preaches three Gods. Equally must one censure those who hold the Son to be a work, and consider that the Lord has come into being, as one of things which really came to be; whereas the divine oracles witness to a generation suitable to Him and becoming, but not to any fashioning or making.
[928] By the Monarchy is meant the doctrine that the Second and Third Persons in the Ever-blessed Trinity are ever to be referred in our thoughts to the First as the Fountain of Godhead, vid. S:15. note 9, and S:19, note 6. It is one of the especial senses in which God is said to be one. Cf. Orat. iii. S:15. vid. also iv. S:1. 'The Father is union, henosis,' says S. Greg. Naz. 'from whom and unto whom are the others.' Orat. 42. 15. also Orat. 20. 7. and Epiph. Haer. 57. 5. Tertullian, before Dionysius, uses the word Monarchia, which Praxeas had perverted into a kind of Unitarianism or Sabellianism, in Prax. 3. Irenaeus too wrote on the Monarchy, i.e. against the doctrine that God is the author of evil. Eus. Hist. v. 20. [see S. Iren. fragment 33, Ante-Nic. Lib.] And before him was Justin's work de Monarchia, where the word is used in opposition to Polytheism. The Marcionites, whom Dionysius presently mentions, are also specified in the above extract by Athan. vid. also Cyril. Hier. Cat. xvi. 3. Epiphanius says that their three origins were God, the Creator, and the evil spirit. Haer. 42, 3. or as Augustine says, the good, the just, and the wicked, which may be taken to mean nearly the same thing. Haer. 22. The Apostolical Canons denounce those who baptize into Three Unoriginate; vid. also Athan. Tom. ad Antioch. 5. Naz. Orat. 20. 6. Basil denies treis archikai hupostaseis, de Sp. S. 38. which is a Platonic phrase.
[929] And so Dionysius Alex. in a fragment preserved by S. Basil, 'If because the subsistences are three, they say that they are partitive, memerismenas, still three there are, though these persons dissent, or they utterly destroy the Divine Trinity.' de Sp. S. n. 72. Athan. expresses the same more distinctly, ou treis hupostaseis memerismenas, Expos. Fid. S:2. In S. Greg. Naz. we find ameristos en memerismenois he theotes. Orat. 31. 14. Elsewhere for mem. he substitutes aper& 191;egmenas. Orat. 20. 6. apexenomenas allelon kai diespasmenas. Orat. 23. 6. as infr. xenas allelon pantapasi kechorismenas. The passage in the text comes into question in the controversy about the ex hupostaseos e ousias of the Nicene Creed, of which infr. on the Creed itself in Eusebius's Letter.
[930] emphilochorein
[931] The word trias, usually translated Trinity, is first used by Theophilus, ad Autol. ii. 15. Gibbon remarks that the doctrine of 'a numerical rather than a generical unity,' which has been explicitly put forth by the Latin Church, is favoured by the Latin language; trias seems to excite the idea of substance, trinitas of qualities.' ch. 21. note 74. It is certain that the Latin view of the sacred truth, when perverted, becomes Sabellianism; and that the Greek, when perverted, becomes Arianism; and we find Arius arising in the East, Sabellius in the West. It is also certain that the word Trinitas is properly abstract; and expresses trias or 'a three,' only in an ecclesiastical sense. But Gibbon does not seem to observe that Unitas is abstract as well as Trinitas; and that we might just as well say in consequence, that the Latins held an abstract unity or a unity of qualities, while the Greeks by monas taught the doctrine of 'a one' or a numerical unity. 'Singularitatem hanc dico (says S. Ambrose), quod Graece monotes dicitur; singularitas ad personam pertinet, unitas ad naturam.' de Fid. v. 1. It is important, however, to understand, that 'Trinity' does not mean the state or condition of being three, as humanity is the condition of being man, but is synonymous with three persons. Humanity does not exist and cannot be addressed, but the Holy Trinity is a three, or a unity which exists in three. Apparently from not considering this, Luther and Calvin objected to the word Trinity, 'It is a common prayer,' says Calvin: 'Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us. It displeases me, and savours throughout of barbarism.' Ep. ad Polon. p. 796.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=31
