Defence of the Nicene Definition

Contents

Reading pages: 1–10 · 11–20 · 21–29 · 30–32

1. 1Athanasius praises his correspondent for refuting the Arians, who, like the Pharisees with Jesus, invent pretexts such as the complaint that Nicaea used unscriptural terms.
2. 2The Arians, like the Pharisees, cavil at the council’s wording instead of defending the views for which they were condemned.
3. 3The Arians at Nicaea were silenced, and Eusebius of Nicomedia’s party and even Eusebius of Caesarea signed the creed with “from the essence” and “of the same essence.”
4. 4Those who reject the council follow inconsistent leaders, whereas true teachers, like the saints and prophets, agree with one another and with their fathers.
5. 5From Moses back to Adam and on to Paul the teaching has been one, so the Arians must either condemn their leaders’ change of mind or accept the council.
6. 6Athanasius quotes the Arian claims that the Son is a creature, and asks in which of Scripture’s two senses of “son” they take him: by adoption for virtue, or by nature.
7. 7Athanasius refutes the Arian claim that the Son alone was made by God directly and everything else through him, showing that it leads to an infinite regress of mediators.
8. 9Even Adam, though formed by God’s hand, does not differ in nature from other men; so on Arian premises the Son would not differ from creatures.
9. 10If the Son were Son only by adoption he would differ from us only in degree; but he is Son by nature, though not with a human, bodily kind of generation.
10. 11God creates and begets in a way unlike men: the Son is begotten without division or passion, eternally, as radiance from light and a stream from a fountain.
11. 12Radiance cannot be separated from the sun, so the Son cannot have had a beginning or be foreign to the Father’s essence.
12. 13The Arians appeal to Prov 8:22, “The Lord created me,” but Scripture distinguishes making a creature, like a house, from begetting a son.
13. 14Prov 8:22 speaks of the Word as man, after he took flesh to free us from death and to make us divine, without ceasing to be God.
14. 15Since Scripture calls the Son God’s Word and Wisdom, saying he once was not means saying God was once without Word and Wisdom.
15. 16If Word and Wisdom were mere names of the Son, or God had many words, the Son would be either lesser than his titles or one word among many, which is impious.
16. 17God has one Word, who is also called Son, Wisdom, Image, Hand, and Power; Scripture shows that all things were made through and in him.
17. 18The Arians’ own catchwords are unscriptural, while the council’s unscriptural terms express a pious meaning; Athanasius now explains the reason for them.
18. 19The council wrote “from the essence” because the Arians claimed that “from God” applied to all creatures alike.
19. 20Because the Arians claimed that “like,” “always,” “power,” and “in him” applied to us too, the council wrote “of the same essence” and added its anathemas.
20. 21The council’s terms are not in Scripture word for word but express its sense: the Son is from the Father, as Scripture itself teaches.
21. 22Since God is simple, “God” signifies his very essence, so “from the essence of God” means the same as “from God,” said of the true Son.
22. 23The image of light and radiance shows that the Son is of the same essence as the Father, not merely like him as one metal resembles another.
23. 24The Son is of the same essence as the Father, as radiance with light; and the council’s terms were already used by Theognostus and by Dionysius of Alexandria.
24. 26Dionysius of Rome condemned both those who divide the Godhead into three gods and those who call the Son a thing made, upholding the Triad and the one monarchy.
25. 27Origen too taught that the Son is eternal, and the council’s faith is the tradition of the catholic church handed down from the apostles.
26. 28The Arians borrowed the non-scriptural term “unoriginate” from the Greek philosophers to reintroduce their condemned claims about the Son.
27. 29Even in the sense “without cause of being,” calling God unoriginate names him in relation to his works, not to the Son, as a builder is maker of houses but father of his son.
28. 30Calling God “Father,” as Christ taught in prayer and baptism, is truer than calling him “unoriginate,” because it names the Son as well.
29. 32Scriptural terms would be preferable, but Arian craft forced the council to use clearer words; Athanasius closes by asking that the letter be read to the brothers.