Chapter 4
the first discourse against the arians chapter four by athanasius of alexandria translated by john henry newman and archibald robertson this librivox recording is in the public domain that the sun is eternal and in create at his suggestion then ye have maintained and ye think that there was once when the sun was not this is the first cloak 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 if ye say the father your blasphemy is but greater for it is impious to say that he was once or to signify him by the word once 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 once naturally signifies this
and your other the son was not before his generation is equivalent to saying there was once when he was not 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 the heathen rage and imagine vain phrases against the lord and against his christ for no holy scripture has used such language of the saviour but rather always and eternal and co-existent always with the father for in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god and in the apocalypse he thus speaks who is and who was and who is to come now who can rob who is and who was of eternity this too in confutation of the jews hath paul written in his epistle to the romans of whom as concerning the flesh is christ who is over all god blessed for ever While silencing the Greeks, he has said, The 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.
And what the power of God is, he teaches us elsewhere himself. Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Surely, in these words, he does not designate the Father, as ye often whisper one to another, affirming that the Father is his eternal power. this is not so for he says not god himself is the power but his is the power very plain is it to all that his is not he and yet not something alien but rather proper to him study too the context and turn to the lord now the lord is that spirit and you will see that it is the son who is signified
after making mention of the creation he naturally speaks of the framer's 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 in him all things consist 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 and if as the saviour also says no one knoweth the father save the son and he to whom the son shall reveal him and if on philip's asking show us the father he said not behold the creation but he that hath seen me hath seen the father reasonably doth paul while 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 reasonably hath he said his eternal power and godhead thereby signifying the son and where the sacred writers say who exists before the ages and by whom he made the ages they thereby as clearly preach the eternal and everlasting being of the son even while they are designating god himself thus if isaiah says the everlasting god the creator of the ends of the earth and susanna said o everlasting god and baruch wrote i will cry unto the everlasting in my days and shortly after my hope is in the everlasting that he will save you and joy is come unto me from the holy one Yet forasmuch as the apostle writing to the Hebrews says,
Who being the radiance of his glory, and the expression of his person, and David too, in the 89th Psalm, and the brightness of the Lord be upon us, and in thy light shall we see light, who has so little sense as to doubt of the eternity of the sun?
For when did man see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, There was once when he was not, or before his generation he was not. And the words addressed to the Son in the 144th Psalm, Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages. Forbid anyone to imagine an 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, it were madness to say, there was once when the everlasting was not, and from nothing is the sun. And whereas the Lord himself says, I am the truth, not I became the truth but always i am i am the shepherd i am the light and again call ye me not lord and master and ye call me well for so i am 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 i am is signified that the son is eternal and without beginning It is plain then from the above that the scriptures declare the Son's eternity.
It is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases, He was not, and before, and when, are in the same scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our system, says, And 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. And in Deuteronomy, When the Most High divided to the nations, and the Lord said in his own person, If ye loved me, ye would rejoice,
because I said, I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you, before it comes to pass, that when it is come to pass, ye might believe. And concerning the creation he says by Solomon
Or 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
And before Abraham was I am And concerning Jeremiah he says Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee And David in the psalm says Before the mountains were brought forth, wherever the earth and the world were made,
Thou art God from everlasting, and world without end. And in Daniel, Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God that knowest the secrets, and knowest all things before they be. Thus it appears that the phrases, Once was not, and before it came to be, and when 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 the scripture of things originate but ever 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's image and word eternal never having not been
but being ever as the eternal radiance of a light which is eternal why imagine then times before the sun 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 through whom all things have been made and without whom not one thing was made or why when you mean time do you not plainly say a time was when the word was not but while you drop the word time 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 there was when he was not and he was not before his generation chapter four
