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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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39 Pages
Page 38
31. Therefore it will be much more accurate to denote God from the Son and to call Him Father, than to name Him and call Him Unoriginated from His works only; for the latter term refers to the works that have come to be at the will of God through the Word, but the name of Father points out the proper offspring from His essence. And whereas the Word surpasses things originated, by so much and more also doth calling God Father surpass the calling Him Unoriginated; for the latter is non-scriptural and suspicious, as it has various senses; but the former is simple and scriptural, and more accurate, and alone implies the Son. And 'Unoriginated' is a word of the Greeks who know not the Son: but 'Father' has been acknowledged and vouchsafed by our Lord; for He knowing Himself whose Son He was, said, 'I in the Father and the Father in Me [956] ;' and, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;' and, 'I and the Father are one [957] ;' but nowhere is He found to call the Father Unoriginated. Moreover, when He teaches us to pray, He says not, 'When ye pray, say, O God Unoriginated,' but rather, 'When ye pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven [958] .' And it was His Will, that the Summary of our faith should have the same bearing. For He has bid us be baptized, not in the name of Unoriginate and Originate, not into the name of Uncreate and Creature, but into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit [959] , for with such an initiation we too are made sons verily [960] , and using the name of the Father, we acknowledge from that name the Word in the Father. But if He wills that we should call His own Father our Father, we must not on that account measure ourselves with the Son according to nature, for it is because of the Son that the Father is so called by us; for since the Word bore our body and came to be in us, therefore by reason of the Word in us, is God called our Father. For the Spirit of the Word in us names through us His own Father as ours, which is the Apostle's meaning when he says, 'God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father [961] .'
[956] John xiv. 9, 10.
[957] Ib. x. 30.
[958] Matt. vi. 9.
[959] And so S. Basil, 'Our faith was not in Framer and Work, but in Father and Son were we sealed through the grace in baptism.' contr. Eunom. ii. 22. And a somewhat similar passage occurs Orat. ii. S:41.
[960] huiopoioumetha alethos. This strong term 'truly' or 'verily' seems taken from such passages as speak of the 'grace and truth' of the Gospel, John i. 12-17. Again S. Basil says, that we are sons, kurios, 'properly,' and protos 'primarily,' in opposition to tropikos, 'figuratively,' contr. Eunom. ii. 23. S. Cyril too says, that we are sons 'naturally' phusikos as well as kata charin, vid. Suicer Thesaur. v. hui& 231;s. i. 3. Of these words, alethos, phusikos, kurios, and protos, the first two are commonly reserved for our Lord; e.g. ton alethos hui& 232;n, Orat. ii. S:37. hemeis huioi, ouk hos ekeinos phusei kai aletheia, iii. S:19. Hilary seems to deny us the title of 'proper' sons; de Trin. xii. 15; but his 'proprium' is a translation of idion, not kurios. And when Justin says of Christ ho monos legomenos kurios hui& 232;s, Apol. ii. 6. kurios seems to be used in reference to the word kurios, Lord, which he has just been using, kuriologein being sometimes used by him as others in the sense of 'naming as Lord,' like theologein. vid. Tryph. 56. There is a passage in Justin's ad Graec. 21. where he (or the writer) when speaking of ego eimi ho hon, uses the word in the same ambiguous sense; ouden gar onoma epi theou kuriologeisthai dunaton, 21; as if kurios, the Lord, by which 'I am' is translated, were a sort of symbol of that proper name of God which cannot be given. But to return; the true doctrine then is, that, whereas there is a primary and secondary sense in which the word Son is used, primary when it has its formal meaning of continuation of nature, and secondary when it is used nominally, or for an external resemblance to the first meaning, it is applied to the regenerate, not in the secondary sense, but in the primary. S. Basil and S. Gregory Nyssen consider Son to be 'a term of relationship according to nature' (vid. supr. S:10, note 1.), also Basil in Psalm xxviii. 1. The actual presence of the Holy Spirit in the regenerate in substance (vid. Cyril, Dial. 7. p. 638.) constitutes this relationship of nature; and hence after the words quoted from S. Cyril in the beginning of the note, in which he says, that we are sons, phusikos, he proceeds, 'naturally, because we are in Him, and in Him alone.' vid. Athan.'s words which follow in the text at the end of S:31. And hence Nyssen lays down, as a received truth, that 'to none does the term "proper," kuriotaton, apply, but to one in whom the name responds with truth to the nature,' contr. Eunom. iii. p. 123. And he also implies, p. 117, the intimate association of our sonship with Christ's, when he connects together regeneration with our Lord's eternal generation, neither being dia pathous, or, of the will of the flesh. If it be asked, what the distinctive words are which are incommunicably the Son's, since so much is man's, it is obvious to answer, idios hui& 232;s and monogenes, which are in Scripture, and the symbols 'of the essence,' and 'one in essence,' of the Council; and this is the value of the Council's phrases, that, while they guard the Son's divinity, they allow full scope, without risk of entrenching on it, to the Catholic doctrine of the fulness of the Christian privileges. vid. supr. S:19, note.
[961] Gal. iv. 6.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/athanasius/defence-nicene-definition.asp?pg=38
