« This was an objection urged by Eunomius, cf. de Sya. 51, note 8. It is implied also in the Apology of the former, § 24, and in Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 28. Aetius was in Alexandria with George of Cappadocia, a.D. 356-8, and Athan. wrote these Discourses in the latter year, as the de Syma. at the end of the next. It is probable then that he is alluding to the Anomeean arguments as he heard them reported, vid. de Sy#. l.c. where he says, ‘ they say, ‘‘as you have written,”’ § 51. “Avéuovos kar’ ovciay is mentioned infr. §17. As the Arians here object that the First and Second Persons of the Holy Trinity are aSeAgol, so did they say the same in the course of the controversy of the Second and Third. vid. Sevag. i. 15. iv. 2.
2 Prov. xviii. 1. 3 Vid. de Syn. § 51.
4 In other words, by the Divine yévyynots is not meant an act but an eternal and unchangeable fact, in the Divine Essence. Arius, not admitting this, objected at the outset of the controversy to the phrase ‘always Father, always Son,’ Theod. A. &, i. 4. p. 749, and Eunomius argues that, ‘if the Son is co-eternal with the Father, the Father was never such in act, évepyos, but was apyos.’ Cyril. Thesaur. v. p. 41. S. Cyril answers that ‘works, €pya, are made éfw@ev, ‘from without;’ but that our Lord, as S. Athanasius here says, is neither a ‘work’ nor ‘ from without. And hence he says elsewhere that, while men are fathers first in posse then in act, God is duvdmet Te Kat évepyeia matip. Dial. 2. p. 458. (vid. supr. p. 65. note m). Victorinus in like manner, says, that God is potentia et actione Deus sed in zterna, Adv. Ar. i. p. 202; and he quotes S, Alexander, speaking apparently in answer to Arius, of a semper generans generatio. And Arius scoffs at devyevyys and ayevvntoyevys. Theod. Hist. i. 4. p. 749s And Origen Yad Said, 6 gwrip aet yevyarau. ap. Routh. Relig. t. 4.
p. 304, and S. Dionysius calls Him the Radiance, évapxyoy Kat devyevés. Sent. Dion. 15. S. Augustine too says, Semper gignit Pater, et semper nascitur Filius. 2%, 238.n.4. Petav. de Trin, li. 5. n. 7, quotes the following passage from Theodorus Abuearay “Since the Son’s generation does but signify His having His existence from the Father, which He has ever, therefore He is ever begotten. For it became Him, who is properly (kupiws) the Son, ever to be deriving His existence from the Father, and not as we who derive its commencement only. In us generation is a way to existence; in the Son of God it denotes the existence itself; in Him it has not existence for its end, but it is itself an end, réAos, and is perfect, réAevov.’ Opuse. 26.
5 de Decr. 22, note 9.
DISCOURSE 1.
ee a ee has the Son been begotten, so as to be later than His Father’s existence, but He is God’s offspring, and as being proper Son of God, who is ever, He exists eternally. For, whereas it 1s proper to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature®, God’s offspring 1s eternal, for His nature is ever perfect?. If then He is not a Son, but a work made out of nothing, they have but to prove it; and then they are at liberty, as if imagining about a creature, to cry out, ‘There was once when He was not;’ for things which are originated were not, and have come to be. But if He is Son, as the Father says, and the Scriptures proclaim, and ‘Son’ is nothing else than what is generated from the Father; and what 1s generated from the Father is His Word, and Wisdom, and Radiance; what is to be said but that, in maintaining ‘Once the Son was not,’ they rob God of His Word, like plunderers, and openly predicate of Him that He was once without His proper Word and Wisdom, and that the Light was once without radiance, and the Fountain was once barren and dry*? For though they pretend alarm at the name of time, because of those who reproach them with it, and say, that He was before times, yet whereas they assign certain intervals, in which they imagine He was not, they are most irreligious still, as equally suggesting times, and imputing to God an absence of Reason 9.
15. But if on the other hand, while they acknowledge with us the name of ‘ Son,’ from an unwillingness to be publicly and generally condemned, they deny that the Son is the proper offspring of the Father’s essence, on the ground that this must imply parts and divisions?; what is this but to deny that He is very Son, and only in name to call Him Son at all? And is it not a grievous error, to have material thoughts about what is immaterial, and because of the weakness of their proper nature to deny what is natural and proper to the Father? It does but remain, that they should deny Him also, because they understand not how God is?, and what the 6 Infr. § 26 fin., and de Decr. 12, note 2.
7 Vid. supr. note 4. A similar passage is found in Cyril. Thesaur. v¥.p.42, Dial. ii. fin. This was retorting the objection; the Arians said, ‘How can God be ever perfect, who added to Himself a Son?’ Athan. answers, ‘How can the Son not be eternal, since God is ever perfect?’ vid. Greg. Nyssen, contr. Eunon. Append. p.142. Cyril. Theasaur. x. p- 78. As to the Son’s perfection, Aetius objects ap. Epiph. Her. 76. pp. 925, 6, that growth and consequent accession from without were essentially involved in the idea of Sonship; whereas S. Greg. Naz. speaks of the Son as not aredy mpdrepor, elra TeAcLov, HaTep vopos THs ymeTépas yeveoews, Orat. 20. 9 fin. In like manner, S. Basil argues against Eunomius, that the Son is reActos, because He is the Image, not as if copied, which is a gradual work, but as a XapaxTnp, OF impression of a seal, or as the knowledge communicated from master to scholar, which comes to the latter and exists in him perfect, without being lost to the former. contr. Eunom. ii, 16 fin.
Father is, now that, foolish men, they measure by themselves the Offspring of the Father. And persons in such a state of mind as to consider that there cannot be a Son of God, demand our pity; but they must be interrogated and exposed for the chance of bringing them to their senses. If then, as you say, ‘the Son is from nothing,’ and ‘ was not before His generation,’ He, of course, as well as others, must be called Son and God and Wisdom only by participation; for thus all other creatures consist, and by sanctification are glorified. You have to tell us then, of what He is partaker3. All other things partake of the Spirit, but He, according to you, of what is He partaker? of the Spirit? Nay, rather the Spirit Himself takes from the Son, as He Himself says; and it is not reasonable to say that the latter is sanctified by the former. Therefore it is the Father that He partakes; for this only remains to say. But this, which is participated, what is it or whence+? If it be something external provided by the Father, He will not now be partaker of the Father, but of what is external to Him; and no longer will He be even second after the Father, since He has before Him this other; nor can He be called Son of the Father, but of that, as partaking which He has been called Son and God. And if this be unseemly and irreligious, when the Father says, ‘This is My Beloved Son,’ and when the Son says that God is His own Father, it follows that what is partaken is not external, but from the essence of the Father. And as to this again, if it be other than the essence of the Son, an equal extravagance will meet us; there being in that case something between this that is from the Father and the essence of the Son, whatever that be®.
16. Such thoughts then being evidently unseemly and untrue, we are driven to say that what is from the essence of the Father, and proper to Hin, is entirely the Son; for it is all one to say that God is wholly participated, and that He 6 Here is taught us the strict unity of the Divine Essence. When it is said that the First Person of the Holy Trinity communicates divinity to the Second, it is meant that that one Essence which is the Father, also is the Son. Hence the force of the word 6p.00vcv0v, which was in consequence accused of Sabellianism, but was distinguished from it by the particle ood, “together, which implied a difference as well as unity; whereas ravtoovovov or auvovavoy implied, with the Sabellians, an identity or a confusion. The Arians, on the other hand, as in the instance of Eusebius, &c., supr. p. 75, note 7; de Syn. 26, note 3; considered the Father and the Son two ovata. The Catholic doctrine is tat, though the Divine Essence is both the Father Ingenerate and also the Only-begotten Son, it is not itself ayévynros or yevynTn 5 which was the objection urged against the Catholics by Aetius, Epiph. Her. 76. to. Cf. de Decr. § 30, Orat. iii. § 36 fin., Expos. Pid. 2. vid. de Syn. 45, note 1. ‘Vera et eterna substantiain se tota permanens, totam se coeterne veritati nativitatis indulsit. Fulgent. Resp. 7. And S. Hilary, ‘ Filius in Patre est et in Filio Pater, non per transfusionem, refusionemque mutuam, sed per viventis naturze perfectam nativitatem.’ 7727. vii. 31, begets; and what does begetting signify but a Son? And thus of the Son Himself, all things partake according to the grace of the Spint coming from Him7; and this shews that the Son Himself partakes of nothing, but what is partaken from the Father, is the Son; for, as partaking of the Son Himself, we are said to partake of God; and this is what Peter said, ‘that ye may be partakers in a divine nature®;’ as says too the Apostle, “Know ye not, that ye are a temple of God?’ and, ‘We are the temple of a living God.’ And beholding the Son, we see the Father; for the thought?° and comprehension of the Son, is knowledge concerning the Father, because He is His proper offspring from His essence. And since to be partaken no one of us would ever call affection or division of God’s essence (for it has been shewn and acknowledged that God is participated, and to be participated is the same thing as to beget); therefore that which is begotten is neither affection nor division of that blessed essence. Hence it is not incredible that God should have a Son, the Offspring of His own essence; nor do we imply affection or division of God’s essence, when we speak of ‘Son’ and ‘Offspring;’ but rather, as acknowledging the genuine, and true, and Onlybegotten of God, so we believe. If then, as we have stated and are shewing, what is the Offspring of the Father’s essence be the Son, we cannot hesitate, rather we must be certain, that the same*! is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, in and through whom He creates and makes all things; and His Brightness too, in whom He enlightens all things, and is revealed to whom He will; and His Expression and Image also, in whom He is contemplated and known, wherefore ‘He and His Father are one *,’ and whoso looketh on Him, looketh on the Father; and the Christ, in whom all things are redeemed, and the new creation wrought afresh. And on the other hand, the Son being such Offspring, it is not fitting, rather it is full of peril, to say, that He is a work out of nothing, or that He was not before His generation. For he who thus speaks of that which is proper to the Father’s essence, already blasphemes the Father Himself?; since he really thinks of Him what he falsely imagines of His offspring.
CHAPTERS Vas SUBJECT CONTINUED.
‘Third proof of the Son’s eternity, viz. from other titles indicative of His coessentiality; as the Creator; as fin. it de Decr. 17, 24.
note.
One of the Blessed Trinity; as Wisdom; as Word; as Image. If the Son is a perfect Image of the Father, why is He not a Father also? because God, being perfect, is not the origin of a race. Only the Father a Father because the Only Father, only the Son a Son because the Only Son. Men are not really fathers and really sons, but shadows of the True. The Son does not become a Father, because He has received from the Father to be immutable and ever the same., 17. This is of itself a sufficient refutation of the Arian heresy; however, its heterodoxy will appear also from the following:—If God be Maker and Creator, and create His works through the Son, and we cannot regard things which come to be, except as being through the Word, is it not blasphemous, God being Maker, to say, that His Framing Word and His Wisdom once was not? it is the same as saying, that God is not Maker, if He had not His proper Framing Word which is from Him, but that That by which He frames, accrues to Him from without3, and is alien from Him, and unlike in essence. Next, let them tell us this,—or rather learn from it how irreligious they are in saying, ‘Once He was not,’ and, ‘He was not before His generation;’—for if the Word is not with the Father from everlasting, the Triad is not everlasting; but a Monad was first, and afterwards by addition it became a Triad; and so as time went on, it seems what we know concerning God grew and took shape 4 And further, if the Son is not proper offspring of the Father’s essence, but of nothing has come to be, then of nothing the Triad consists, and once there was not a Triad, but a Monad; and a Triad once with deficiency, and then complete; deficient, before the Son was originated, complete when He had come to be; and henceforth a thing originated is reckoned with the Creator, and what once was not has divine worship and glory with Him who was ever5. Nay, what is more serious still, the Triad is discovered to be unlike Itself, consisting of strange and alien natures and essences. And this, in other words, is saying, that the Triad has an originated consistence. What sort of a religion then is this, which is not even like itself, but is in process of completion as time goes on, and is now not thus, and then again thus? For probably it will receive some fresh accession, and so on without limit, since at first and at starting it took its consistence by way of accessions.
And so undoubtedly it may decrease on the contrary, for what is added plainly admits of being subtracted. 18, But this is not so: perish the thought; the Triad is not originated; but there is an eternal and one Godhead in a Triad, and there is one Glory of the Holy Triad. And you presume to divide it into different natures; the Father being eternal, yet you say of the Word which is seated by Him, ‘ Once He was not;’ and, whereas the Son is seated by the Father, yet you think to place Him far from Him. The Triad is Creator and Framer, and you fear not to degrade It to things which are from nothing; you scruple not to equal servile beings to the nobility of the Triad, and to rank the King, the Lord of Sabaoth, with subjects®. Cease this confusion of things unassociable, or rather of things which are not with Him who is. Such statements do not glorify and honour the Lord, but the reverse; for he who dishonours the Son, dishonours also the Father. For if the doctrine of God is now perfect in a Triad, and this is the true and only Religion, and this is the good and the truth, it must have been always so, unless the good and the truth be something that came after, and the doctrine of God is completed by additions. I say, it must have been eternally so; but if not eternally, not so at present either, but at present so, as you suppose it was from the beginning,—I mean, not a Triad now. But such heretics no Christian would bear; it belongs to Greeks, to introduce an originated Triad, and to level It with things originate; for these do admit of deficiencies and additions; but the faith of Christians acknowledges the blessed Triad as unalterable and perfect and ever what It was, neither adding to It what is more, nor imputing to It any loss (for both ideas are irreligious), and therefore it dissociates It from all things generated, and it guards as indivisible and worships the unity of the Godhead Itself; and shuns the Arian blasphemies, and confesses and acknowledges that the Son was ever; for He is eternal, as is the Father, of whom He is the Eternal Word,—to which subject let us now return again.
19. If God be, and be called, the Fountain of wisdom and life—as He says by Jeremiah, ‘They have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters7;’ and again, ‘A glorious high throne from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary; O Lord, the Hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from Me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters®;’ and in the book of Baruch it is written, ‘Thou hast forsaken.
the Fountain of wisdom 9,’—this implies that life and wisdom are not foreign to the Essence of the Fountain, but are proper to It, 6 De Decr. § 31- Le nor were at any time without existence, but were always. Now the Son is all this, who says, ‘I am the Life,’ and, ‘I Wisdom dwell! with prudence *.’ Is it not then irreligious to say, ‘Once the Son was not?’ for it is all one with saying, ‘Once the Fountain was dry, destitute of Life and Wisdom.’ But a fountain it would then cease to be; for what begetteth not from itself, is not a fountain'. What a load of extravagance! for God promises that those who do His will shall be as a fountain which the water fails not, saying by Isaiah the prophet, ‘And the Lord shall satisfy thy soul in drought, and make thy bones fat; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not 2.’ And yet these, whereas God is called and is a Fountain of wisdom, dare to insult Him as barren and void of His proper Wisdom. But their doctrine is false; truth witnessing that God is the eternal Fountain of His proper Wisdom; and, if the Fountain be eternal, the Wisdom also must needs be eternal. For in It were all things made, as David says in the Psalm, ‘ In Wisdom hast Thou made them all3;’ and Solomon says, ‘The Lord by Wisdom hath formed the earth, by understanding hath He established the heavens+.’ And this Wisdom is the Word, and by Him, as John says, ‘all things were made,’ and ‘without Him was made not one things.” And this Word is Christ; for ‘there is One God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him®.’ And if all things are through Him, He Himself is not to be reckoned with that ‘all’ For he who dares7 to call Him, through whom are all things, one of that ‘all,’ surely will have like speculations concerning God, from whom are all. But if he shrinks from this as unseemly, and excludes God from that all, it is but consistent that he should also exclude from that all the Only-Begotten Son, as being proper to the Father’s essence. And, if He be not one of the all®, it is sin to say concerning Him, ‘He was not,’ and ‘ He was not before His generation.’ Such words may be used of the creatures; but as to the Son, He is such as the Father is, of whose essence He is proper Offspring, Word, and Wisdom? For this is proper to the Son, as regards the Father, and this shews that the Father is proper to the Son; that we may neither say that God was ever without Word?°, nor that the Son to John xiv. 6. 1 Prov. viii. 12. t Supr. § 18.
2 Isa. lviii. 11. 3 Ps, civ. 24. 4 Proy. ili. 19.
5 Johni. 3. [See Westcott’s additzonal note on the passage. ] 6 x Cor. viii. 6. Vid. Petav. de Trin. ii. 12, § 4.
10 ghoyov. Vid, note on de Decr. §§ x, 15, where other inpitale- we oes Beerec aN ete was non-existent. For wherefore a Son, if not from Him? or wherefore Word and Wisdom, if not ever proper to Him?; 20. When then was God without that which is proper to Him? or how can a man consider that which is proper, as foreign and alien in essence? for other things, according to the nature of things originate, are without likeness im essence with the Maker; but are external to Him, made by the Word at His grace and will, and thus admit of ceasing to be, if it sO pleases Him who made them*; for such is the nature of things originate. But as to what is proper to the Father’s essence (for this we have already found to be the Son), what daring is it in irreligion to say that ‘ This comes from nothing,’ and that ‘It was not before generation,’ but was adventitious 3, and can at some time cease to be again? Let a person only dwell upon this thought, and he will discern how the perfection and the plenitude of the Father's essence is impaired by this heresy; however, he will see its unseemliness still more clearly, if he considers that the Son is the Image and Radiance of the Father, and Expression, and Truth. For if, when Light exists, there be withal its Image, viz. Radiance, and, a Subsistence existing, there be of it the entire Expression, and, a Father existing, there be His Truth (viz. the Son); let them consider what depths of irreligion they fall into, who make time the measure of the Image and Form of the Godhead. For if the Son was not before His generation, stances are given from Athan. and Dionysius of Rome; vid. also Orat. iv. 2,4. Sent. D, 23. Origen, supr. p. 48, Athenag. Leg. ro. Tat. contr. Grec. 5. Theoph. ad Avutol. ii. 10. Hipp. contr. Noet. 10. Nyssen. contr. Eunom. vii. p. 215. vill. pp. 230, 240. Orat. Catech. 1. Naz. Orat, 29. 17 fin. Cyril. Thesaur. xiv. p. 145 (vid. Petav. de Trin. vi. 9). It must not be supposed from these instances that the Fathers meant that our Lord was literally what is called the attribute of reason or wisdom in the Divine Essence, or in other words, that He was God merely viewed as He is wise; which would be a kind of Sabellianism. But, whereas their opponents said that He was but cadled Word and Wisdom after the attribute (vid. de Syn. 15, note), they said that such titles marked, not only a typical resemblance to the attribute, but so full a correspondence and (as it were) coincidence in zature with it, that whatever relation that attribute had to God, such in kind had the Son;—that the attribute was His symbol, and not His mere archetype; that our Lord was eternal and proper to God, because that attribute was, which was His title, vid. 42. “#g. 14, that our Lord was that Essential Reason and Wisdom,—not dy which the Father zs wise, but wzthout which the Father was ot wise;—not, that is, in the way of a formal cause, but in fact. Or, whereas the Father Himself is Reason and Wisdom, the Son is the necessary result of that Reason and Wisdom, so that, to say that there was no Word, would imply there was no Divine Reason; just as a radiance implies a light; or, as Petavius remarks, l.c.
quoting the words which follow shortly after in the text, the eternity of the Original implies the eternity of the Image; rs UVToTTATEws VrapXovoys, TavTws EOS clvar Sed TOY XapaKTHpa Kal THY Eikova TavTys, § 20. vid. also infr. § 31, de Decr. § 13, p. 21, §§ 20, 23, pp. 35, 40. Theod. H. Z. i. 3. p. 737-