III. ii. 6. Creation is an external act, generation an internal. 21 that the present men also, though overthrown and confuted CHAP. by an abundance of arguments, still were putting about in every quarter this passage, and saying that the Son was one of the creatures, and reckoning Him with things generated1. 'yunroïs But they seem to me to have a wrong understanding of this passage also; for it has a religious and very orthodox sense, which, had they understood, they would not have blasphemed the Lord of glory. For on comparing what has been above stated with this passage, they will find a great difference between them. For what man of right understanding does not perceive, that what are created and made are external to the maker; but the Son, as the foregoing argument has shewn, exists not externally, but from the Father who begat Him? for man too both builds a house and begets a son, and no one would mismatch things, and say that the house or the ship were begotten by the builder2, but the Son was created and made by 2 Serap. him; nor again that the house was an image of the maker, but the Son unlike Him who begat Him; but rather he will confess that the Son is an image of the Father, but the house a work of art, unless his mind be disordered, and he beside himself. Plainly, divine Scripture, which knows better than any the nature of every thing, says through Moses, of the creatures, In the beginning God created the heaven and the Gen. 1, earth; but of the Son it introduces the Father Himself1. saying, I have begotten Thee from the womb before the Ps. 110, morning star; and again, Thou art My Son, this day have Ps. 2,7. I begotten Thee. And the Lord says of Himself in the Proverbs, Before all the hills He begets Me; and concerning Prov. 8, things generated and created John speaks, All things were John 1, made by Him; but preaching of the Lord, he says, The 3. Only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. If then son, therefore not creature; if creature, not son; for great is the difference between them, and son and creature cannot be the same, unless his substance be considered to be at once from God, and external to God. * i. e. "Granting that the prima facie impression of this text is in favour of our Lord's being a creature, yet so many arguments have been already brought, and may be added, against His creation, that we must interpret 3. 25. ver. 18. NICEN. §. 14. 12. "Has then the passage no meaning?" for this, like a swarm of gnats, they are droning about us'. No surely, it is not without meaning, but has a very apposite one; for it is true to say that the Son was created too, but this took place when He became man; for creation belongs to man. And any one may find this sense duly given in the divine oracles, who, instead of accounting their study a secondary matter, investigates the time and characters, and the object, and thus studies and ponders what he reads. Now as to the season spoken of, he will find for certain that, whereas the Lord 1 air, always is, at length in fulness of the ages1 He became man; and whereas He is Son of God, He became Son of man also. And as to the object he will understand, that, wishing to annul our death, He took on Himself a body from the Virgin Mary; that by offering this unto the Father a sacrifice for all, He might deliver us all, who by fear of death were all Heb. 2, our life through subject to bondage. And as to the character, it is indeed the Saviour's, but is said of Him when He took Prov. 8, a body and said, The Lord has created Me a beginning of His ways unto His works. For as it properly belongs to God's Son to be everlasting, and in the Father's bosom, so on His becoming man, the words befitted Him, The Lord created Me. For then it is said of Him, and He hungered, and He thirsted, and He asked where Lazarus lay, and 2Sent.D. He suffered, and He rose again 2. And as, when we hear iii. §. of Him as Lord and God and true Light, we understand 26-41. Him as being from the Father, so on hearing, The Lord 15. 22. 9. Orat. created, and Servant, and He suffered, we shall justly ascribe this, not to the Godhead, for it is irrelevant, but we must interpret it by that flesh which He bore for our sakes; for to it these things are proper, and this flesh was none other's than the Word's. And if we wish to know the object attained by this, Y argißop Bouri. So in ad Afros. 5. init. And Sent. D. §. 19. wigiśgxovrai regißoμBouvres. And Gregory Nyssen, contr. Eun. viii. p. 234. C. ŵs äv Toùs àærígovs ταῖς πλατωνικαῖς καλλιφωνίαις περιβομβήσειν. vid. also περιέρχονται ὡς οἱ κάνε Jago Orat. iii. fin. goora. vid. Orat. i. §. 54. ii. §. 8. Sent. D. 4. not persons, but characters; which must also be considered the meaning of the word. contr. Apoll. ii. 2. and 10; though it there approximates (even in phrase, οὐκ ἐν διαιρέσει xgoráray) to its ecclesiastical use, which seems to have been later. Yet persona occurs in Tertull. in Prax. 27; it may be questioned, however, whether in any genuine Greek treatise till the Apollinarians. By the Word becoming man, men become gods. 23 III. we shall find it to be as follows; that the Word was made flesh CHAP. in order to offer up this body for all, and that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be made gods, a gift which we could not otherwise have gained than by His clothing Himself in our created body1; for hence we derive our name of 66 men of Orat.ii. God" and "men in Christ." But as we, by receiving the Spirit, do not lose our own proper substance, so the Lord, when made man for us, and bearing a body, was no less God; for He was not lessened by the envelopment of the body, but rather deified it and rendered it immortal ". a "remaining Himself unalterable, nomy and presence in the flesh." Orat. and not changed by His human eco- ii. 6. §. 70. NICEN. §. 15. CHAP. IV. PROOF OF THE CATHOLIC SENSE OF THE WORD SON. Power, Word or Reason, and Wisdom, the names of the Sọn, imply eternity; as well as the Father's title of Fountain. The Arians reply that these do not formally belong to the essence of the Son, but are names given Him; that God has many words, powers, &c. Why there is but one Son and Word, &c. All the titles of the Son coincide in Him. 1. THIS then is quite enough to expose the infamy of the Arian heresy; for, as the Lord has granted, out of their own words is irreligion brought home to them". But come now and let us on our part act on the offensive, and call on them for an answer; for now is fair time, when their own ground has failed them, to question them on ours; perhaps it may abash the perverse, and disclose to them whence they have fallen. We have learned from divine Scripture, that the Son of God, as was said above, is the very Word and Wisdom of the 1 Cor. 1, Father. For the Apostle says, Christ the power of God and the Wisdom of God; and John after saying, And the Word was made flesh, at once adds, And we have seen His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of graee and truth; so that, the Word being the Only-begotten Son, in this Word and in Wisdom heaven and earth and all that is therein were made. And of this Wisdom that God is Fountain we have learned from1 Baruch, by Israel's being charged with having forsaken the Fountain of Wisdom. If then they deny Scripture, they are at once aliens to their name, and 24. John 1, 14. 1 vid. supr. §. 12. b The main argument of the Arians was that our Lord was a Son, and therefore was not eternal, but of a substance which had a beginning. With this Arius started in his dispute with Alexander. 66 Arius, a man not without dialectic skill, thinking that the Bishop was introducing the doctrine of SabelJius the Libyan, out of contention fell off into the opinion diametrically opposite,....and he says, 'If the Father begot the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence; and from this it is plain that once the Son was not; and it follows of necessity that He had His subsistence out of nothing." Socr. i. 5. Accordingly, Athanasius says, "Having argued with them as to the meaning of their own selected term, 'Son,' let us go on to others, which on the very face make for us, such as Word, Wisdom, &c." To deny God's Wisdom, is to deny that God is wise. 25 IV. 1 vid. note f. may fitly be called of all men atheists', and Christ's enemies, CHAP. for they have brought upon themselves these names. But if they agree with us that the sayings of Scripture are divinely supr.p.3. inspired, let them dare to say openly what they think in secret, that God was once wordless and wisdomless; and let them in their madness2 say, "There was once when He was 2 vid. above, not," and, " before His generation, Christ was not";" and i. 2. again let them declare that the Fountain begat not Wisdom from Itself, but acquired It from without, till they have the daring to say, "The Son came of nothing;" whence it will follow that there is no longer a Fountain, but a sort of pool, as if receiving water from without, and usurping the name of Fountain. 2. How full of irreligion this is, I consider none can doubt §. 16. who has ever so little understanding. But since they whisper something about Word and Wisdom, being only names of the Son, we must ask then, If these are only names of cüλoyos, äropos. vid. infra, §. 26. This is a frequent argument in the controversy, viz. that to deprive the Father of His Son or substantial Word, (Aéyos,) is as great a sacrilege as to deny His Reason, ayos, from which the Son receives His name. Thus Orat. i. §. 14. fin. Athan. says, "imputing to God's nature an absence of His Word, (λoylav or irrationality,) they are most irreligious." vid. §. 19. fin. 24. Elsewhere, he says, "Is a man not mad himself, who even entertains the thought that God is word-less and wisdom-less ? for such illustrations and such images Scripture hath proposed, that, considering the inability of human nature to comprehend concerning God, we might even from these, however poorly and dimly, discern as far as is attainable." Orat. ii. 32. vid. also iii. 63. iv. 14. Serap. ii. 2. d These were among the original positions of the Arians; the former is mentioned by Socrates, vid. note b. the latter is one of those specified in the Nicene Anathema. And so nyn Engú. Serap. ii. 2. Orat. i. §. 14. fin. also ii. §. 2. where Athanasius speaks as if those who deny that Almighty God is Father, cannot really believe in Him as a Creator. “If He be not a Son, let Him be called a work, and let God be called, not Father, but Framer only and Creator, f Arius said, as the Eunomians after ment. "I am in |