{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/204/2040349.htm","path":"chr/ecf/204/2040349.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/204/2040349.htm","text":"Chapter IV.\u2014That the Son is Eternal and Increate. These attributes, being the points in dispute, are first proved by direct texts of Scripture. Concerning the \u2018eternal power\u2019 of God in Rom. i. 20, which is shewn to mean the Son. Remarks on the Arian formula, \u2018Once the Son was not,\u2019 its supporters not daring to speak of \u2018a time when the Son was not.\u2019\n11. At his suggestion then ye have maintained and ye think, that \u2018there was once when the Son was not;\u2019 this is the first cloke of your views of doctrine which has to be stripped off. Say then what was once when the Son was not, O slanderous and irreligious men 1881 ? If ye say the Father, your blasphemy is but greater; for it is impious to say that He was \u2018once,\u2019 or to signify Him by the word \u2018once.\u2019 For He is ever, and is now, and as the Son is, so is He, and is Himself He that is, and Father of the Son. But if ye say that the Son was once, when He Himself was not, the answer is foolish and unmeaning. For how could He both be and not be? In this difficulty, you can but answer, that there was a time when the Word was not; for your very adverb \u2018once\u2019 naturally signifies this. And your other, \u2018The Son was not before His generation,\u2019 is equivalent to saying, \u2018There was once when He was not,\u2019 for both the one and the other signify that there is a time before the Word. Whence then this your discovery? Why do ye, as \u2018the heathen, rage, and imagine vain phrases against the Lord 1882 and against His Christ?\u2019 for no holy Scripture has used such language of the Saviour, but rather \u2018always\u2019 and \u2018eternal\u2019 and \u2018coexistent always with the Father.\u2019 For, \u2018In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God 1883 .\u2019 And in the Apocalypse he thus speaks 1884 ; \u2018Who is and who was and who is to come.\u2019 Now who can rob \u2018who is\u2019 and \u2018who was\u2019 of eternity? This too in confutation of the Jews hath Paul written in his Epistle to the Romans, \u2018Of whom as concerning the flesh is Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever 1885 ;\u2019 while silencing the Greeks, he has said, \u2018The visible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead 1886 ;\u2019 and what the Power of God is, he teaches us elsewhere himself, \u2018Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1887 .\u2019 Surely in these words he does not designate the Father, as ye often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father is \u2018His eternal power.\u2019 This is not so; for he says not, \u2018God Himself is the power,\u2019 but \u2018His is the power.\u2019 Very plain is it to all that \u2018His\u2019 is not \u2018He;\u2019 yet not something alien but rather proper to Him. Study too the context and \u2018turn to the Lord;\u2019 now \u2018the Lord is that Spirit 1888 ;\u2019and you will see that it is the Son who is signified.\np. 313 12. For after making mention of the creation, he naturally speaks of the Framer\u2019s Power as seen in it, which Power, I say, is the Word of God, by whom all things have been made. If indeed the creation is sufficient of itself alone, without the Son, to make God known, see that you fall not, from thinking that without the Son it has come to be. But if through the Son it has come to be, and \u2018in Him all things consist 1889 ,\u2019 it must follow that he who contemplates the creation rightly, is contemplating also the Word who framed it, and through Him begins to apprehend the Father 1890 . And if, as the Saviour also says, \u2018No one knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him 1891 ,\u2019 and if on Philip\u2019s asking, \u2018Shew us the Father,\u2019 He said not, \u2018Behold the creation,\u2019 but, \u2018He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father 1892 ,\u2019 reasonably doth Paul,\u2014while accusing the Greeks of contemplating the harmony and order of the creation without reflecting on the Framing Word within it (for the creatures witness to their own Framer) so as through the creation to apprehend the true God, and abandon their worship of it,\u2014reasonably hath he said, \u2018His Eternal Power and Godhead 1893 ,\u2019 thereby signifying the Son. And where the sacred writers say, \u2018Who exists before the ages,\u2019 and \u2018By whom He made the ages 1894 ,\u2019 they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and everlasting being of the Son, even while they are designating God Himself. Thus, if Isaiah says, \u2018The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth 1895 ;\u2019 and Susanna said, \u2018O Everlasting God 1896 ;\u2019 and Baruch wrote, \u2018I will cry unto the Everlasting in my days,\u2019 and shortly after, \u2018My hope is in the Everlasting, that He will save you, and joy is come unto me from the Holy One 1897 ;\u2019 yet forasmuch as the Apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, \u2018Who being the radiance of His glory and the Expression of His Person 1898 ;\u2019 and David too in the eighty-ninth Psalm, \u2018And the brightness of the Lord be upon us,\u2019 and, \u2018In Thy Light shall we see Light 1899 ,\u2019 who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity of the Son 1900 ? for when did man see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, \u2018There was once, when He was not,\u2019 or \u2018Before His generation He was not.\u2019 And the words addressed to the Son in the hundred and forty-fourth Psalm, \u2018Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages 1901 ,\u2019 forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval in the ages is measured, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him 1902 , it were madness to say, \u2018There was once when the Everlasting was not,\u2019 and \u2018From nothing is the Son.\u2019 And whereas the Lord Himself says, \u2018I am the Truth 1903 ,\u2019 not \u2018I became the Truth;\u2019 but always, \u2018I am,\u2014I am the Shepherd,\u2014I am the Light,\u2019\u2014and again, \u2018Call ye Me not, Lord and Master? and ye call Me well, for so I am,\u2019 who, hearing such language from God, and the Wisdom, and Word of the Father, speaking of Himself, will any longer hesitate about the truth, and not forthwith believe that in the phrase \u2018I am,\u2019 is signified that the Son is eternal and without beginning?\n13. It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son\u2019s eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases \u2018He was not,\u2019 and \u2018before\u2019 and \u2018when,\u2019 are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our system, says, \u2018And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground 1904 .\u2019 And in Deuteronomy, \u2018When the Most High divided to the nations 1905 .\u2019 And the Lord said in His own Person, \u2018If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice p. 314 because I said, I go unto the Father, for My Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe 1906 .\u2019 And concerning the creation He says by Solomon, \u2018Or ever the earth was, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, was I brought forth 1907 .\u2019 And, \u2018Before Abraham was, I am 1908 .\u2019 And concerning Jeremiah He says, \u2018Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee 1909 .\u2019 And David in the Psalm says, \u2018Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, Thou art, God from everlasting and world without end 1910 .\u2019 And in Daniel, \u2018Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be 1911 .\u2019 Thus it appears that the phrases \u2018once was not,\u2019 and \u2018before it came to be,\u2019 and \u2018when,\u2019 and the like, belong to things originate and creatures, which come out of nothing, but are alien to the Word. But if such terms are used in Scripture of things originate, but \u2018ever\u2019 of the Word, it follows, O ye enemies of God, that the Son did not come out of nothing, nor is in the number of originated things at all, but is the Father\u2019s Image and Word eternal, never having not been, but being ever, as the eternal Radiance 1912 of a Light which is eternal. Why imagine then times before the Son? or wherefore blaspheme the Word as after times, by whom even the ages were made? for how did time or age at all subsist when the Word, as you say, had not appeared, \u2018through\u2019 whom \u2018all things have been made and without\u2019 whom \u2018not one thing was made 1913 ?\u2019 Or why, when you mean time, do you not plainly say, \u2018a time was when the Word was not?\u2019 But while you drop the word \u2018time\u2019 to deceive the simple, you do not at all conceal your own feeling, nor, even if you did, could you escape discovery. For you still simply mean times, when you say, \u2018There was when He was not,\u2019 and \u2018He was not before His generation.\u2019\nAthan. observes that this formula of the Arians is a mere evasion to escape using the word \u2018time.\u2019 vid. also Cyril. Thesaur. iv. pp. 19, 20. Else let them explain,\u2014\u2018There was,\u2019 what \u2018when the Son was not?\u2019 or what was before the Son? since He Himself was before all times and ages, which He created, de Decr. 18, note 5. Thus, if \u2018when\u2019 be a word of time, He it is who was \u2018when\u2019 He was not, which is absurd. Did they mean, however, that it was the Father who \u2018was\u2019 before the Son? This was true, if \u2018before\u2019 was taken, not to imply time, but origination or beginning. And in this sense the first verse of S. John\u2019s Gospel may be interpreted \u2018In the Beginning,\u2019 or Origin, i.e. in the Father \u2018was the Word.\u2019 Thus Athan. himself understands that text, Orat. iv. \u00a71. vid. also Orat. iii. \u00a79; Nyssen. contr. Eunom. iii. p. 106; Cyril. Thesaur. 32. p. 312.\n312:1882 312:1883 312:1884\nRev. i. 4. \u03c4\u03ac\u03b4\u03b5 \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9. [On \u03bb\u03ad\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9, &c., in citations, see Lightf. on Gal. iii. 16, Winer, Gram. \u00a758, 9 \u03b3, Grimm-Thayer, s.v. II. 1. e.]\n312:1885 312:1886 312:1887\n1 Cor. i. 24. Athan. has so interpreted this text supr. de Decr. 15. It was either a received interpretation, or had been adduced at Nic\u00e6a, for Asterius had some years before these Discourses replied to it, vid. de Syn. 18, and Orat. ii. \u00a737.\n312:1888\n2 Cor. 3:16, 17. S. Athanasius observes, Serap. i. 4\u20137, that the Holy Ghost is never in Scripture called simply \u2018Spirit\u2019 without the addition \u2018of God\u2019 or \u2018of the Father\u2019 or \u2018from Me\u2019 or of the article, or of \u2018Holy,\u2019 or \u2018Comforter,\u2019 or \u2018of truth,\u2019 or unless He has been spoken of just before. Accordingly this text is understood of the third Person in the Holy Trinity by Origen, contr. Cels. vi. 70; Basil de Sp. S. n. 32; Pseudo-Athan. de comm. ess. 6. On the other hand, the word \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1, \u2018Spirit, is used more or less distinctly for our Lord\u2019s Divine Nature whether in itself or as incarnate, in Rom. 1:4, 1 Cor. xv. 45, 1 Tim. iii. 16, Heb. 9:14, 1 Pet. iii. 18, John vi. 63, &c. [But cf. also Milligan Resurr. 238 sq.] Indeed the early Fathers speak as if the \u2018Holy Spirit,\u2019 which came down upon S. Mary might be considered the Word. E.g. Tertullian against the Valentinians, \u2018If the Spirit of God did not descend into the womb \u201cto partake in flesh from the womb,\u201d why did He descend at all?\u2019 de Carn. Chr. 19. vid. also ibid. 5 and 14. contr. Prax. 26, Just. Apol. i. 33. Iren. H\u00e6r. v. 1. Cypr. Idol Van. 6. Lactant. Instit. iv. 12. vid. also Hilar. Trin. ii. 27; Athan. \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u1f14\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c4\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1. Serap. i. 31 fin. \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u1ff3 \u1f26\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1 ibid. iii. 6. And more distinctly even as late as S. Maximus, \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03c4\u1f76 \u03c3\u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u1fb6\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd, \u03ba\u03b5\u03ba\u03cd\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, t. 2. p. 309. The earliest ecclesiastical authorities are S. Ignatius ad Smyrn. init. and S. Hermas (even though his date were a.d. 150), who also says plainly: Filius autem Spiritus Sanctus est. Sim. v. 5, 2, cf. ix. 1. The same use of \u2018Spirit\u2019 for the Word or Godhead of the Word, is also found in Tatian. adv. Gr\u00e6c. 7. Athenag. Leg. 10. Theoph. ad Autol. ii. 10. Iren. H\u00e6r. iv. 36. Tertull. Apol. 23. Lact. Inst. iv. 6, 8. Hilar. Trin. ix. 3, and 14. Eustath. apud Theod. Eran. iii. p. 235. Athan. contr. Apoll. i. 8. Apollinar. ap. Theod. Eran. i. p. 71, and the Apollinarists passim. Greg. Naz. Ep. 101. ad Cledon. p. 85. Ambros. Incarn. 63. Severian. ap. Theod. Eran. ii. p. 167. Vid. Grot. ad Marc. ii. 8; Bull, Def. F. N. i. 2, \u00a75; Coustant. Pr\u00e6f. in Hilar. 57, &c. Montfaucon in Athan. Serap. iv. 19. [see also Tertullian, de Orat. init.]\n313:1889 313:1890 313:1891 313:1892 313:1893 313:1894 313:1895 313:1896 313:1897 313:1898 313:1899\nPs. xc. 17; xxxvi. 9.\n313:1900 313:1901 313:1902\nVid. de Decr. 18, note 5. The subject is treated at length in Greg. Nyss. contr. Eunom. i. t. 2. Append. p. 93\u2013101. vid. also Ambros. de Fid. i. 8\u201311. As time measures the material creation, \u2018ages\u2019 were considered to measure the immaterial, as the duration of Angels. This had been a philosophical distinction, Tim\u00e6us says \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u03ce\u03bd \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03bd\u03ac\u03c4\u1ff3 \u03c7\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u1ff3, \u1f43\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b5\u03c2. vid. also Philon. Quod Deus Immut. 6. Euseb. Laud. C. 1 prope fin., p. 501. Naz. Or. 38. 8.\n313:1903\nJohn xiv. 6; x. 14; viii. 12; xiii. 13\n313:1904 313:1905 314:1906\nJohn 14:28, 29.\n314:1907 314:1908 314:1909 314:1910 314:1911 314:1912 314:1913","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. IV: Against...","type":"page"}