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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 6
As a parallel instance he takes the word agennetos which like homousios is not a scriptural word, and like it also is used in two ways, signifying either (1) To on men, mete de gennethen mete holos echon ton aition, or (2) To aktiston. In the former sense the Son cannot be called agennetos, in the latter he may be so called. Both uses, he says, are found in the fathers. Of the latter he quotes the passage in Ignatius as an example; of the former he says, that some writers subsequent to Ignatius declare hen to agenneton ho pater, kai eis ho ex autou huios gnesios, gennema alethinon k.t.l. [He may have been thinking of Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 7, which I shall quote below.] He maintains that both are orthodox, as having in view two different senses of the word agenneton , and the same, he argues, is the case with the councils which seem to take opposite sides with regard to homousios. It is clear from this passage, as Zahn truly says, that Athanasius is dealing with one and the same word throughout; and, if so, it follows that this word must be agenneton, since ageneton would be intolerable in some places. I may add by way of caution that in two other passages, de Decret. Syn. Nic. 28 (1, p. 184), Orat. c. Arian. i. 30 (1, p. 343), St. Athanasius gives the various senses of ageneton (for this is plain from the context), and that these passages ought not to be treated as parallels to the present passage which is concerned with the senses of agenneton . Much confusion is thus created, e.g. in Newman's notes on the several passages in the Oxford translation of Athanasius (pp. 51 sq., 224 sq.), where the three passages are treated as parallel, and no attempt is made to discriminate the readings in the several places, but "ingenerate" is given as the rendering of both alike. If then Athanasius who read gennetos kai agennetos in Ignatius, there is absolutely no authority for the spelling with one n. The earlier editors (Voss, Ussher, Cotelier, etc.), printed it as they found it in the ms.; but Smith substituted the forms with the single n, and he has been followed more recently by Hefele, Dressel, and some other. In the Casanatensian copy of the ms., a marginal note is added, anagnosteon agenetos tout' esti me poietheis. Waterland (Works, III., p. 240 sq., Oxf. 1823) tries ineffectually to show that the form with the double n was invented by the fathers at a later date to express their theological conception. He even "doubts whether there was any such word as agennetos so early as the time of Ignatius." In this he is certainly wrong.
The mss. of early Christian writers exhibit much confusion between these words spelled with the double and the single n. See e.g. Justin Dial. 2, with Otto's note; Athenag. Suppl. 4 with Otto's note; Theophil, ad Autol. ii. 3, 4; Iren. iv. 38, 1, 3; Orig. c. Cels. vi. 66; Method. de Lib. Arbitr., p. 57; Jahn (see Jahn's note 11, p. 122); Maximus in Euseb. Praep. Ev. vii. 22; Hippol. Haer. v. 16 (from Sibylline Oracles); Clem. Alex. Strom. v. 14; and very frequently in later writers. Yet notwithstanding the confusion into which later transcribers have thus thrown the subject, it is still possible to ascertain the main facts respecting the usage of the two forms. The distinction between the two terms, as indicated by their origin, is that agenetos denies the creation, and agennetos the generation or parentage. Both are used at a very early date; e.g. agenetos by Parmenides in Clem. Alex. Strom. v. 14, and by Agothon in Arist. Eth. Nic. vii. 2 (comp. also Orac. Sibyll. prooem. 7, 17); and agennetos in Soph. Trach. 61 (where it is equivalent to dusgenon. Here the distinction of meaning is strictly preserved, and so probably it always is in Classical writers; for in Soph. Trach. 743 we should after Porson and Hermann read ageneton with Suidas. In Christian writers also there is no reason to suppose that the distinction was ever lost, though in certain connexions the words might be used convertibly. Whenever, as here in Ignatius, we have the double n where we should expect the single, we must ascribe the fact to the indistinctness or incorrectness of the writer's theological conceptions, not to any obliteration of the meaning of the terms themselves. To this early father for instance the eternal gennesis of the Son was not a distinct theological idea, though substantially he held the same views as the Nicene fathers respecting the Person of Christ. The following passages from early Christian writers will serve at once to show how far the distinction was appreciated, and to what extent the Nicene conception prevailed in ante-Nicene Christianity; Justin Apol. ii. 6, comp. ib. ยง 13; Athenag. Suppl. 10 (comp. ib. 4); Theoph. ad. Aut. ii. 3; Tatian Orat. 5; Rhodon in Euseb. H. E. v. 13; Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 7; Orig. c. Cels. vi. 17, ib. vi. 52; Concil. Antioch (a.d. 269) in Routh Rel. Sacr. III., p. 290; Method. de Creat. 5. In no early Christian writing, however, is the distinction more obvious than in the Clementine Homilies, x. 10 (where the distinction is employed to support the writer's heretical theology): see also viii. 16, and comp. xix. 3, 4, 9, 12. The following are instructive passages as regards the use of these words where the opinions of other heretical writers are given; Saturninus, Iren. i. 24, 1; Hippol. Haer. vii. 28; Simon Magus, Hippol. Haer. vi. 17, 18; the Valentinians, Hippol. Haer. vi. 29, 30; the Ptolemaeus in particular, Ptol. Ep. ad. Flor. 4 (in Stieren's Irenaeus, p. 935); Basilides, Hippol. Haer. vii. 22; Carpocrates, Hippol. Haer. vii. 32.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/first.asp?pg=6
