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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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78 Pages
Page 5
Excursus on the Words gennethenta ou poiethenta .
(J. B. Lightfoot. The Apostolic Fathers--Part II. Vol. ii. Sec. I. pp. 90, et seqq.)
The Son is here [Ignat. Ad. Eph. vii.] declared to be gennetos as man and agennetos as God, for this is clearly shown to be the meaning from the parallel clauses. Such language is not in accordance with later theological definitions, which carefully distinguished between genetos and gennetos between agenetos and agennetos; so that genetos, agenetos respectively denied and affirmed the eternal existence, being equivalent to ktistos, aktistos, while gennetos, agennetos described certain ontological relations, whether in time or in eternity. In the later theological language, therefore, the Son was gennetos even in his Godhead. See esp. Joann. Damasc. de Fid. Orth. i. 8 [where he draws the conclusion that only the Father is agennetos, and only the Son gennetos].
There can be little doubt however, that Ignatius wrote gennetos kai agennetos, though his editors frequently alter it into genetos kai agenetos. For (1) the Greek ms. still retains the double [Greek nun] n, though the claims of orthodoxy would be a temptation to scribes to substitute the single n. And to this reading also the Latin genitus et ingenitus points. On the other hand it cannot be concluded that translators who give factus et non factus had the words with one n, for this was after all what Ignatius meant by the double n, and they would naturally render his words so as to make his orthodoxy apparent. (2) When Theodoret writes gennetos ex agennetou, it is clear that he, or the person before him who first substituted this reading, must have read gennetos kai agennetos, for there would be no temptation to alter the perfectly orthodox genetos kai agenetos, nor (if altered) would it have taken this form. (3) When the interpolator substitutes ho monos alethinos Theos ho agennetos...tou de monogonous pater kai gennetor, the natural inference is that he too, had the forms in double n, which he retained, at the same time altering the whole run of the sentence so as not to do violence to his own doctrinal views; see Bull Def. Fid. Nic. ii. 2 § 6. (4) The quotation in Athanasius is more difficult. The mss. vary, and his editors write genetos kai agenetos. Zahn too, who has paid more attention to this point than any previous editor of Ignatius, in his former work (Ign. v. Ant. p. 564), supposed Athanasius to have read and written the words with a single n, though in his subsequent edition of Ignatius (p. 338) he declares himself unable to determine between the single and double n. I believe, however, that the argument of Athanasius decides in favour of the nn. Elsewhere he insists repeatedly on the distinction between ktizein and gennan, justifying the use of the latter term as applied to the divinity of the Son, and defending the statement in the Nicene Creed genneton ek tes ousias tou patros ton huion homoousion (De Synod. 54, 1, p. 612). Although he is not responsible for the language of the Macrostich (De Synod. 3, 1, p. 590), and would have regarded it as inadequate without the homoousion, yet this use of terms entirely harmonizes with his own. In the passage before us, ib. §§ 46, 47 (p. 607), he is defending the use of homousios at Nicaea, notwithstanding that it had been previously rejected by the council which condemned Paul of Samosata, and he contends that both councils were orthodox, since they used homousios in a different sense.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/first.asp?pg=5
