--- title: "Select Works and Letters" author: "Athanasius" translator: "Archibald Robertson" languages: [en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 109 of 146 url: https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/109/ cite: "Athanasius, tr. Archibald Robertson, Select Works and Letters, section 109. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/109/" --- # Select Works and Letters *Athanasius, tr. Archibald Robertson* Athanasius defends the Nicene faith: the Orations against the Arians, his letters and more. ## 109. When the Word and Son hungered, wept, and was wearied, He acted as our Mediator, taking on Him what was ours, that He might impart to us what was His Source: https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/109/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/athanasius-select-works-and-letters/109/#p-N [¶0] §§6, 7. When the Word and Son hungered, wept, and was wearied, He acted as our Mediator, taking on Him what was ours, that He might impart to us what was His. [¶1] 6. But in answer to the weak and human notion of the Arians, their supposing that the Lord is in want, when He says, ‘Is given unto Me,’ and ‘I received,’ and if Paul says, ‘Wherefore He highly exalted Him,’ and ‘He set Him at the right hand,’ and the like, we must say that our Lord, being Word and Son of God, bore a body, and became Son of Man, that, having become Mediator between God, and men, He might minister the things of God to us, and ours to God. When then He is said to hunger and weep and weary, and to cry Eloi, Eloi, which are our human affections, He receives them from us and offers to the Father, interceding for us, that in Him they may be annulled. And when it is said, ‘All power is given unto Me,’ and ‘I received,’ and ‘Wherefore God highly exalted Him,’ these are gifts given from God to us through Him. For the Word was never in want, nor has come into being; nor again were men sufficient to minister these things for themselves, but through the Word they are given to us; therefore, as if given to Him, they are imparted to us. For this was the reason of His becoming man, that, as being given to Him, they might pass on to us. For of such gifts mere man had not become worthy; and again the mere Word had not needed them; the Word then was united to us, and then imparted to us power, and highly exalted us. For the Word being in man, highly exalted man himself; and, when the Word was in man, man himself received. Since then, the Word being in flesh, man himself was exalted, and received power, therefore these things are referred to the Word, since they were given on His account; for on account of the Word in man were these gifts given. And as ‘the Word became flesh,’ so also man himself received the gifts which came through the Word. For all that man himself has received, the Word is said to have received; that it might be shewn, that man himself, being unworthy to receive, as far as his own nature is concerned, yet has received because of the Word become flesh. Wherefore if anything be said to be given to the Lord, or the like, we must consider that it is given, not to Him as needing it, but to man himself through the Word. For every one interceding for another, receives the gift in his own person, not as needing, but on his account for whom he intercedes. [¶2] 7. For as He takes our infirmities, not being infirm, and hungers not hungering, but sends up what is ours that it may be abolished, so the gifts which come from God instead of our infirmities, doth He too Himself receive, that man, being united to Him, may be able to partake them. Hence it is that the Lord says, ‘All things whatsoever Thou hast given Me, I have given them,’ and again, ‘I pray for them.’ For He prayed for us, taking on Him what is ours, and He was giving what He received. Since then, the Word being united to man himself, the Father, regarding Him, vouchsafed to man to be exalted, to have all power and the like; therefore are referred to the Word Himself, and are as if given to Him, all things which through Him we receive. For as He for our sake became man, so we for His sake are exalted. It is no absurdity then, if, as for our sake He humbled Himself, so also for our sake He is said to be highly exalted. So ‘He gave to Him,’ that is, ‘to us for His sake;’ ‘and He highly exalted Him,’ that is, ‘us in Him.’ And the Word Himself, when we are exalted, and receive, and are succoured, as if He Himself were exalted and received and were succoured, gives thanks to the Father, referring what is ours to Himself, and saying, ‘All things, whatsoever Thou hast given Me, I have given unto them.’ ### Arians date the Son's beginning earlier than Marcellus, &c [¶4] §8. Arians date the Son’s beginning earlier than Marcellus, &c. [¶5] 8. Eusebius and his fellows, that is, the Ario-maniacs, ascribing a beginning of being to the Son, yet pretend not to wish Him to have a beginning of kingship. But this is ridiculous; for he who ascribes to the Son a beginning of being, very plainly ascribes to Him also a beginning of reigning; so blind are they, confessing what they deny. Again, those who say that the Son is only a name, and that the Son of God, that is, the Word of the Father, is unessential and non-subsistent, pretend to be angry with those who say, ‘Once He was not.’ This is ridiculous also; for they who give Him no being at all, are angry with those who at least grant Him to be in time. Thus these also confess what they deny, in the act of censuring the others. And again Eusebius and his fellows, confessing a Son, deny that He is the Word by nature, and would have the Son called Word notionally; and the others confessing Him to be Word, deny Him to be Son, and would have the Word called Son notionally, equally void of footing. ### Unless Father and Son are two in name only, or as parts and so each imperfect, or two gods, they are coessential, one in Godhead, and the Son from the Father [¶7] §§9, 10. Unless Father and Son are two in name only, or as parts and so each imperfect, or two gods, they are coessential, one in Godhead, and the Son from the Father. [¶8] 9. ‘I and the Father are One.’ You say that the two things are one, or that the one has two names, or again that the one is divided into two. Now if the one is divided into two, that which is divided must need be a body, and neither part perfect, for each is a part and not a whole. But if again the one have two names, this is the expedient of Sabellius, who said that Son and Father were the same, and did away with either, the Father when there is a Son, and the Son when there is a Father. But if the two are one, then of necessity they are two, but one according to the Godhead, and according to the Son’s coessentiality with the Father, and the Word’s being from the Father Himself; so that there are two, because there is Father, and Son, namely the Word; and one because one God. For if not, He would have said, ‘I am the Father,’ or ‘I and the Father am;’ but, in fact, in the ‘I’ He signifies the Son, and in the ‘And the Father,’ Him who begat Him; and in the ‘One’ the one Godhead and His coessentiality. For the Same is not, as the Gentiles hold, Wise and Wisdom, or the Same Father and Word; for it were unfit for Him to be His own Father, but the divine teaching knows Father and Son, and Wise and Wisdom, and God and Word; while it ever guards Him indivisible and inseparable and indissoluble in all respects. [¶9] 10. But if any one, on hearing that the Father and the Son are two, misrepresent us as preaching two Gods (for this is what some feign to themselves, and forthwith mock, saying, ‘You hold two Gods’), we must answer to such, If to acknowledge Father and Son, is to hold two Gods, it instantly follows that to confess but one we must deny the Son and Sabellianise. For if to speak of two is to fall into Gentilism, therefore if we speak of one, we must fall into Sabellianism. But this is not so; perish the thought! but, as when we say that Father and Son are two, we still confess one God, so when we say that there is one God, let us consider Father and Son two, while they are one in the Godhead, and in the Father’s Word being indissoluble and indivisible and inseparable from Him. And let the fire and the radiance from it be a similitude of man, which are two in being and in appearance, but one in that its radiance is from it indivisibly. ### Marcellus and his disciples, like Arians, say that the Word was, not indeed created, but issued, to create us, as if the Divine silence were a state of inaction, and when God spake by the Word, He acted; or that there was a going forth and return of the Word; a doctrine which implies change and imperfection in Father and Son [¶11] §§11, 12. Marcellus and his disciples, like Arians, say that the Word was, not indeed created, but issued, to create us, as if the Divine silence were a state of inaction, and when God spake by the Word, He acted; or that there was a going forth and return of the Word; a doctrine which implies change and imperfection in Father and Son. [¶12] 11. They fall into the same folly with the Arians; for Arians also say that He was created for us, that He might create us, as if God waited till our creation for His issue, as the one party say, or His creation, as the other. Arians then are more bountiful to us than to the Son; for they say, not we for His sake, but He for ours, came to be; that is, if He was therefore created, and subsisted, that God through Him might create us. And these, as irreligious or more so, give to God less than to us. For we oftentimes, even when silent, yet are active in thinking, so as to form the results of our thoughts into images; but God they would have inactive when silent, and when He speaks then to exert strength; if, that is, when silent He could not make, and when speaking He began to create. For it is just to ask them, whether the Word, when He was in God, was perfect, so as to be able to make. If on the one hand He was imperfect, when in God, but by being begotten became perfect, we are the cause of His perfection, that is, if He has been begotten for us; for on our behalf He has received the power of making. But if He was perfect in God, so as to be able to make, His generation is superfluous; for He, even when in the Father, could frame the world; so that either He has not been begotten, or He was begotten, not for us, but because He is ever from the Father. For His generation evidences, not that we were created, but that He is from God; for He was even before our creation. [¶13] 12. And the same presumption will be proved against them concerning the Father; for if, when silent, He could not make, of necessity He has gained power by begetting, that is, by speaking. And whence has He gained it? and wherefore? If, when He had the Word within Him, He could make, He begets needlessly, being able to make even in silence. Next, if the Word was in God before He was begotten, then being begotten He is without and external to Him. But if so, how says He now, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me?’ but if He is now in the Father, then always was He in the Father, as He is now, and needless is it to say, ‘For us was He begotten, and He reverts after we are formed, that He may be as He was.’ For He was not anything which He is not now, nor is He what He was not; but He is as He ever was, and in the same state and in the same respects; otherwise He will seem to be imperfect and alterable. For if, what He was, that He shall be afterwards, as if now He were not so, it is plain, He is not now what He was and shall be. I mean, if He was before in God, and afterwards shall be again, it follows that now the Word is not in God. But the Lord refutes such persons when He says, ‘I in the Father and the Father in Me;’ for so is He now as He ever was. But if so He now is, as He was ever, it follows, not that at one time He was begotten and not at another, nor that once there was silence with God, and then He spake, but there is ever a Father, and a Son who is His Word, not in name alone a Word, nor the Word in notion only a Son, but existing coessential with the Father, not begotten for us, for we are brought into being for Him. For, if He were begotten for us, and in His begetting we were created, and in His generation the creature consists, and then He returns that He may be what He was before, first, He that was begotten will be again not begotten. For if His progression be generation, His return will be the close of that generation, for when He has come to be in God, God will be silent again. But if He shall be silent, there will be what there was when He was silent, stillness and not creation, for the creation will cease to be. For, as on the Word’s outgoing, the creation came to be, and existed, so on the Word’s retiring, the creation will not exist. What use then for it to come into being, if it is to cease? or why did God speak, that then He should be silent? and why did He issue One whom He recalls? and why did He beget One whose generation He willed to cease? Again it is uncertain what He shall be. For either He will ever be silent, or He will again beget, and will devise a different creation (for He will not make the same, else that which was made would have remained, but another); and in due course He will bring that also to a close, and will devise another, and so on without end. ### Such a doctrine precludes all real distinctions of personality in the Divine Nature. Illustration of the Scripture doctrine from 2 Cor. vi. 11, &c [¶15] §§13, 14. Such a doctrine precludes all real distinctions of personality in the Divine Nature. Illustration of the Scripture doctrine from 2 Cor. vi. 11, &c. [¶16] 13. This perhaps he borrowed from the Stoics, who maintain that their God contracts and again expands with the creation, and then rests without end. For what is dilated is first straitened; and what is expanded is at first contracted; and it is what it was, and does but undergo an affection. If then the Monad being dilated became a Triad, and the Monad was the Father, and the Triad is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, first the Monad being dilated, underwent an affection and became what it was not; for it was dilated, whereas it had not been dilate. Next, if the Monad itself was dilated into a Triad, and that, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, then Father and Son and Spirit prove the same, as Sabellius held, unless the Monad which he speaks of is something besides the Father, and then he ought not to speak of dilatation, since the Monad was to make Three, so that there was a Monad, and then Father, Son, and Spirit. For if the Monad were dilated, and expanded itself, it must itself be that which was expanded. And a Triad when dilated is no longer a Monad, and when a Monad it is not yet a Triad. And so, He that was Father was not yet Son and Spirit; but, when become These, is no longer only Father. And a man who thus should lie, must ascribe a body to God, and represent Him as passible; for what is dilatation, but an affection of that which is dilated? or what the dilated, but what before was not so, but was strait indeed; for it is the same, in time only differing from itself. [¶17] 14. And this the divine Apostle knows, when he writes to the Corinthians, ‘Be ye not straitened in us, but be ye yourselves dilated, O Corinthians;’ for he advises identical persons to change from straitness to dilatation. And as, supposing the Corinthians being straitened were in turn dilated, they had not been others, but still Corinthians, so if the Father was dilated into a Triad, the Triad again is the Father alone. And he says again the same thing, ‘Our heart is dilated;’ and Noah says, ‘May God dilate for Japheth,’ for the same heart and the same Japheth is in the dilatation. If then the Monad dilated, it would dilate for others; but if it dilated for itself, then it would be that which was dilated; and what is that but the Son and Holy Spirit? And it is well to ask him, when thus speaking, what was the action of this dilatation? or, in very truth, wherefore at all it took place? for what does not remain the same, but is in course of time dilated, must necessarily have a cause of dilatation. If then it was in order that Word and Spirit should be with Him, it is beside the purpose to say, ‘First Monad, and then dilated;’ for Word and Spirit were not afterwards, but ever, or God would be wordless, as the Arians hold. So that if Word and Spirit were ever, ever was it dilated, and not at first a Monad; but if it were dilated afterwards, then afterwards is there a Word. But if for the Incarnation it was dilated, and then became a Triad, then before the Incarnation there was not yet a Triad. And it will seem even that the Father became flesh, if, that is, He be the Monad, and was dilated in the Man; and thus perhaps there will only be a Monad, and flesh, and thirdly Spirit; if, that is, He was Himself dilated; and there will be in name only a Triad. It is absurd too to say that it was dilated for creating; for it were possible for it, remaining a Monad, to make all; for the Monad did not need dilatation, nor was wanting in power before being dilated; it is absurd surely and impious, to think or speak thus in the case of God. Another absurdity too will follow. For if it was dilated for the sake of the creation, and while it was a Monad the creation was not, but upon the Consummation it will be again a Monad after dilatation, then the creation too will come to nought. For as for the sake of creating it was dilated, so, the dilatation ceasing, the creation will cease also.