Chapter 32
the fourth discourse against the arians part two by athanasius of alexandria translated by john henry newman and archibald robertson this libra box recording is in the public domain paragraphs eight through fourteen Eusebius and his fellows, that is, the aerial 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 i and the father are one you say that the two things are one and 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 me 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 sebelius who said that the son and the 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 co-essentiality with the father and the words being from the father himself so 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 co-essentiality
for the same is not as the gentiles hold wise and wisdom or the same father and word for it were unfit to 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 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 sabalianize for if to speak of two is to fall into gentilism therefore if we speak of one we must fall into sabalianism 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 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 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 co-essential 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 he 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 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 words outgoing, the creation came to be and existed,
so on the words retiring the creation will cease to 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 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 straightened 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 Sibelius held, unless the monad which he speaks of is something besides the Father. And then he ought not to speak of dilation, since the monad was to make three, so that there was a monad, and then Father, Son, and Spirit.
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 sebelius held unless the monad which he speaks of is something besides the father and then he ought not to speak of dilation 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 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 passable
for what is dilation but an affection of that which is dilated or what the dilated but what before was not so but was straight indeed for it is the same in time only differing from itself 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 dilation 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 the same heart and the same japheth is in the dilation if then the monad dilated it would be dilated for others but if it dilated for itself then it would be that which was dilated and what is that but the son and the holy spirit and it is well to ask him when thus speaking what was the action of this dilation
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 dilation if then it was in order that the word and the spirit should be with him it is besides 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 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 dilation 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 dilation then the creation too will come to naught for as for the sake of creating it was dilated so the dilation ceasing the creation will cease also and part two
