DEF. 16 No sense of Sonship can be maintained but the Catholic. NICEN. We something less, and were made afterwards, so long as we all partake, and are called sons, of the same Father". For the more or less does not indicate a different nature; but attaches to each according to the practice of virtue; and one is placed over ten cities, another over five; and some sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and others Mat. 25, hear the words, Come, ye blessed of My Father, and, Well ib. 5,32. done, good and faithful servant. With such ideas, however, no wonder they imagine that of such a Son God was not always Father, and such a Son was not always in being, but was generated from nothing as a creature, and was not before His generation; for such an one is other than the True Son of God. 34. 8. But to persist in such teaching does not consist with piety", for it is rather the tone of thought of Sadducees and Samosatene; it remains then to say that the Son of God is so called according to the other sense, in which Isaac was son of Abraham; for what is naturally begotten from any one and does not accrue to him from without, that in the nature of things is a son, and that is what the name 1 vega implies*. Is then the Son's generation one of human1 af ποταθής g And so in Orat. ii. §. 19-22. "Though the Son surpassed other things on a comparison, yet He were equally a creature with them; for even in those things which are of a created nature, we may find some things surpassing others. Star, for instance, differs from star in glory, yet it does not follow that some are sovereign, and others serve, &c." ii. §. 20. And so Gregory Nyssen contr. Eunom. iii. p. 132. D. Epiph. Hær. 76. p. 970. hi. e. since it is impossible they can persist in evasions so manifest as these, nothing is left but to take the other sense of the word. i Paul of Samosata is called Samosatene, as John of Damascus Damascene, from the frequent adoption of the names Paul and John. Hence also John Chrysostom, Peter Chrysologus, John Philoponus. Paul was Bishop of Antioch in the middle of the third century, and was deposed for a sort of Sabellianism. He was the friend of Lucian, from whose school the principal Arians issued. His prominent tenet, to which Athan. seems here to allude, was that our Lord became the Son by oxon, or growth in holiness, (vid. Luke 2, 52. goixorrs,) "advancing as a man, "Orat. iii. §. 51. Or he may be alluding to his doctrine of our Lord's predestination, referred to supr. §. 6. cir. fin. for Paul spoke of Him as God predestined before ages, but from Mary receiving the origin of His existence." contr. Apoll. i. 20. k The force lies in the word ou, “naturally,” which the Council expressed still more definitely by "substance." Thus Cyril says, "the term 'Son' denotes the substantial origin from the Father." Dial. 5. p. 573. And Gregory Nyssen, "the title Son' does not simply express the being from another," (vid. infra, §. 19.) but relationship according to nature. contr. Eunom. ii. p. 91. Again St. Basil says, that Father is "a term of relationship," oixuworws. contr. Eunom. ii. 24. init. And hence he remarks, that we too are properly, xvgiws, sons of God, as becoming related to Him through works of the Spirit. ii. 23. So also Cyril, loc. cit. Elsewhere, St. Basil defines father" one Divine generation is not as human. 17 III. fection? (for this perhaps, as their predecessors', they too CHAP. will be ready to object in their ignorance ;)-in no wise; for God is not as man, nor man as God. Men are created of matter, and that passible'; but God is immaterial and'ralnasincorporeal. And if so be the same terms are used of God and man in divine Scripture, yet the clear-sighted, as Paul injoins, will study it, and thereby discriminate, and dispose of what is written according to the nature of each subject, and avoid any confusion of sense, so as neither to conceive of the things of God in a human way, nor to ascribe the things of man to God". For this were to mix wine with water, and to place upon the altar strange fire with that which is divine. vid. Orat. iii. §. 35. 9. For God creates, and to create is also ascribed to men; §. 11. and God has being3, and men are said to be, having received ykoti. from God this gift also. Yet does God create as men do? or is His being as man's being? Perish the thought; we understand the terms in one sense of God, and in another of men. For God creates, in that He calls what is not into being, needing nothing thereunto; but men work some existing material, first praying, and so gaining the wit to make, from that God who has framed all things by His proper Word. And again men, being incapable of self-existence, are inclosed in place, and consist in the Word of God; but who gives to another the origin of being m One of the characteristic points in Athanasius is his constant attention to the sense of doctrine, or the meaning of writers, in preference to the words used. Thus he scarcely uses the symbol duocúrior, one in substance, throughout his Orations, and in the de Synod. acknowledges the Semiarians as brethren. Hence infr. §. 18. he says, that orthodox doctrine "is revered by all, though expressed in strange language, provided the speaker means religiously, с out and wishes to convey by it a religious NICEN. God is self-existent, inclosing all things, and inclosed by DEF. none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature". As then men create not as God creates, as their being is not such as God's being, so men's generation is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another. For the offspring of men are portions of their fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but transitive, and composed of parts; 1 årojjí- and men lose their substance' in begetting, and again they gain substance from the accession of food. And on this account men in their time become fathers of many children; ουσι Vid. also Incarn. §. 17. This contrast is not commonly found in ecclesiastical writers, who are used to say that God is present every where, in substance as well as by energy or power. S. Clement, however, expresses himself still more strongly in the same way, " In substance far off, (for how can the generate come close to the Ingenerate?) but most close in power, in which the universe is embosomed." Strom. 2. circ. init. but the parenthesis explains his meaning. vid. Cyril. Thesaur. 6. p. 44. The common doctrine of the Fathers is, that God is present every where in substance. vid. Petav. de Deo, iii. 8. and 9. It may be remarked, that S. Clement continues "neither inclosing nor inclosed." • In Almighty God is the perfection and first pattern of what is seen in shadow in human nature, according to the imperfection of the subject matter; and this remark applies, as to creation, so to generation. Athanasius is led to state this more distinctly in another connection in Orat. i. §. 21. fin. "It belongs to the Godhead alone, that the Father is properly (xveiws) Father, and the Son properly (xvgiws) Son; and in Them and Them only does it hold that the Father is ever Father, and the Son ever Son." Accordingly he proceeds, shortly afterwards, as in the text, to argue, "[The heretics]ought in creation also to supply God with materials, and so to deny Him to be Creator; but if the bare idea of God transcends such thoughts, and a man believes that He is in being, not as we are, and yet in being, as God, and that He creates not as man creates, but yet creates as God, therefore He begets also not as men beget, but begets as God. For God does not make men His pattern, but rather we men, for that God is properly and alone truly Father of His Son, are also called fathers of our own children, for 'of Him is every fatherhood in heaven and on earth named.' §. 23. The Semiarians at Ancyra quote the same text for the same doctrine. Epiphan. Hær. 73. 5. As do Cyril. in Joan. iii. p. 24. Thesaur. 32. p. 281. and Damascene de Fid. Orth. i. 8. The same parallel, as existing between creation and generation, is insisted on by Isidor. Pel. Ep. iii. 355. Basil. contr. Eun. iv. p. 280. A. Cyril Thesaur. 6. p. 43. Epiph. Hær. 69. 36. and Gregor. Naz. Orat. 20. 9. who observes that God creates with a word, Ps. 148, 5. which evidently transcends human creations. Theodorus Abucara with the same object, draws out the parallel of life, wn, as Athan. that of being, va. Opusc. iii. p. 420— 422. P vid. de Synod. §. 51. Orat. i. §. 15. 16. ver. vid. Orat. i. §. 28. Bas. in. Eun. ii. 23. jur. Bas. in Eun. ii. 6. Greg. Naz. Orat. 28. 22. Vid. contr. Gentes, §. 41. where Athan. without reference to the Arian controversy,draws out the contrast between the Godhead and human nature. "The nature of things generated, as having its subsistence from nothing, is of a transitive (tr) and feeble and mortal sort, considered by itself; seeing then that it was transitive and dissoluble, lest this should take place, and it should be resolved into its original nothing, God governs and sustains it all, by His own Word, who is Himself God," and who, as he proceeds, §. 42. "remaining Himself immoveable with the Father, moves all things in His own consistence, as each may seem fit to His Father." Divine generation is not material, but spiritual. 19 III. · ἀποῤῥοὴ 17. but God, being without parts, is Father of the Son without CHAP. partition or passion; for there is neither effluence of the Immaterial, nor accession from without, as among men; and being uncompounded in nature, He is Father of One Only Son. This is why He is Only-begotten, and alone in the Father's bosom, and alone is acknowledged by the Father to be from Him, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am Mat. 3, well pleased. And He too is the Father's Word, from which may be understood the impassible and impartitive nature of the Father, in that not even a human word is begotten with passion or partition, much less the Word of God'. Wherefore also He sits, as Word, at the Father's right hand; for where the Father is, there also is His Word; but we, as His works, stand in judgment before Him; and He is adorable, because He is Son of the adorable Father, but we adore, confessing Him Lord and God, because we are creatures and other than He. 10. The case being thus, let who will among them consider §. 12. the matter, so that one may abash them by the following question; Is it right to say that what is God's offspring and proper to Him is out of nothing? or is it reasonable in the very idea, that what is from God has accrued to Him, that a man should dare to say that the Son was not always? For in this again the generation of the Son exceeds and transcends the thoughts of man, that we become fathers of our own children in time, since we ourselves first were not and then came into being; but God, in that He ever is, is ever Father of the Son'. 9 S. Cyril, Dial. iv. init. p. 505, E. speaks of the guλλovμívn åroppon; and disclaims it, Thesaur. 6. p. 43. Athanasius disclaims it, Expos. §. 1. Orat. i. §. 21. So does Alexander, ap. Theod. Hist. i. 3. p. 743. On the other hand, Athanasius quotes it in a passage which he adduces from Theognostus, infra, §. 25. and from Dionysius, de Sent. D. §. 23. and Origen uses it, Periarchon, i.2. It is derived from Wisd. vii. 25. The title "Word" implies the ineffable mode of the Son's generation, as distinct from material parallels, vid. Gregory Nyssen, contr. Eunom. iii. p. 107. Chrysostom in Joan. Hom. 2. §. 4. Cyril Alex. Thesaur. 5. p. 37. Also it implies that there is but One Son. vid. infra, §. 16. "As the Origin is one substance, so its Word and Wisdom is one, substantial and sub- Man," says S. Cyril, inasmuch DEF. Mat. 11, 27. 3. 9. 12. 13. 1. ad 20 As is symbolized by the words Light, Fountain, Life, &c. NICEN. And the generation of mankind is brought home to us from things that are parallel; but, since no one knoweth the Son but the Father, and no one knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him, therefore the sacred writers to whom the Son has revealed Him, have given us a Heb. 1, certain image from things visible, saying, Who is the brightness Ps. 36, of His glory, and the Expression of His Person; and again, For with Thee is the well of life, and in Thy light shall we see Bar. 3, light; and when the Word chides Israel, He says, Thou hast forsaken the Fountain of wisdom; and this Fountain it is Jer. 2, which says, They have forsaken Me the fountain of living Ivid.Ep. waters. And mean indeed and very dim is the illustration1 compared with what we desiderate; but yet it is possible Serap. from it to understand something above man's nature, instead 669.a.b. of thinking the Son's generation to be on a level with ours. For who can even imagine that the radiance of light ever was not, so that he should dare to say that the Son was not always, or that the Son was not before His generation? or who is capable of separating the radiance from the sun, or to conceive of the fountain as ever void of life, that he should madly say, John 14," The Son is from nothing," who says, I am the life, or "alien to the Father's substance," who says, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father? for the sacred writers wishing us thus to understand, have given these illustrations; and it is indecent and most irreligious, when Scripture contains such images, to form ideas concerning our Lord from others which are neither in Scripture, nor have any religious bearing. 20. p. 6. Ib. v. 9. §. 13. 11. Therefore let them tell us, from what teacher or by what tradition they derived these notions concerning the Saviour? Prov. 8, "We have read," they will say, " in the Proverbs, The Lord hath created Me a beginning of His ways unto His works2; Orat. ii. this the Eusebians used to insist on", and you write me word, through 22. 2 vid. out. vid. infra passim. All these titles, "Word, Wisdom, Light," &c. serve to guard the title "Son" from any notions of parts or dimensions, e. g. "He is not composed of parts, but being impassible and single, He is impassibly and indivisibly Father of the Son...for...the Word and Wisdom is neither creature, nor part of Him whose Word He is, nor an offspring passibly begotten." Orat. i. §. 28. u Eusebius of Nicomedia quotes it in his Letter to Paulinus, ap. Theodor. Hist. i. 5. And Eusebius of Cæsarea Demonstr. Evang. v. 1. |