Oration II Against the Arians

Contents

Reading pages: 1–10 · 11–20 · 21–30 · 31–40 · 41–50 · 51–60 · 61–71 · 72–82

1. 1Athanasius opens the second oration by naming the two texts the Arians now press, Prov 8:22 and Heb 3:2, and says that such sayings refer to the Word become man.
2. 2If the Son were only a work, God would be a barren creator without Word or Wisdom; his begetting by nature must come before his creating by will.
3. 3Words follow natures, not the reverse: Scripture calls sons “servants” and servants “children” without changing what they are, as with Solomon.
4. 4Scripture regularly speaks of natural children as “made,” “acquired,” or “come to be,” so such words applied to the Son do not make him a work.
5. 5The first question is whether the Lord is Son, Word, and Wisdom; if he is, he cannot be a work, since all works were made through him.
6. 6A “work” is judged, but the Son is the judge; and “faithful” in Heb 3:2 means trustworthy, as it does of God, not believing, as it does of human beings.
7. 7Heb 3:1–2 speaks not of the Word's divine generation but of his becoming high priest in the flesh, as Aaron became high priest by putting on the priestly robes.
8. 8As Aaron remained the same man when he put on the priestly robes, so the Word remained the same when he put on flesh; Heb 2:14–3:2 shows that “made” refers to his becoming man and high priest.
9. 9He became apostle and high priest when he shared our flesh; he is “faithful” because his once-for-all sacrifice abides and his high priesthood has no successor.
10. 10Unlike the perishing gods of the Greeks, God and his Son are faithful because unchanging; Hebrews at once sets the Son above Moses as builder and Lord of the house.
11. 11Words like “made,” “created,” “servant,” or “brother” describe the Word's humanity; Scripture never says God made himself a Son or created a Word.
12. 12In Acts 2:36 “made” refers to the crucified humanity and means “displayed,” as Acts 2:22 shows; so too the Son “made himself equal to God” by displaying it in his works.
13. 13The Word was eternally Lord and King, as the Old Testament shows; Acts 2:36 speaks of the lordship over us that he acquired when he became man and redeemed all by the cross.
14. 14The eternal Lord became our Lord when he took flesh and redeemed us; as God “becomes” a protector without beginning to be God, so the Son was “made Lord” without beginning to be Lord.
15. 15Peter's words answer the Jewish expectation of a merely human Christ who would not suffer; Christ himself had taught both his suffering and his divinity.
16. 16Athanasius paraphrases Peter's argument to the Jews: the Scriptures announce a divine, life-giving Christ, fulfilled in the crucified and risen Jesus, and God made the Word become man so that we would not worship a mere man.
17. 17Isaac's words “I have made him your lord” show that “made” can denote a later authority rather than a creature's origin, as in Acts 2:36.
18. 18Peter who calls Christ “made Lord” also says that he pours out the Spirit, which no creature can give; Athanasius reviews the Arian questions already refuted and turns to Prov 8:22.
19. 19The Arian formula “a creature, but not as one of the creatures” is a pretense: every creature differs from every other, so the phrase leaves the Son one creature among many.
20. 20Creatures differ in glory but share the nature of creatures and praise their creator; the Word is that creator, the truth whom all creation hymns, and works eternally with the Father.
21. 21If the Son were a creature he could not create, for no creature brings being out of nothing; only God fashions, while human beings merely rework existing matter.
22. 22God calls things into being through his Word, so the Word cannot be one of them; only the Son knows and sees the Father, which no creature can do.
23. 23Scripture never ranks the Son above other creatures by degree but calls him the only Son; creatures refuse worship, but the Son receives it from angels, nations, and disciples.
24. 24Only the true Son is worshipped and has all that is the Father's; the Arian claim that God made the Son alone as a go-between because creation could not bear his direct hand is absurd.
25. 25God neither tires nor disdains to make lesser things, since his providence reaches even sparrows and grass; so he did not need a created Son as a helper.
26. 26If the created nature needed a mediator to receive God's working, the created Word would need one too, and so on without end; nothing could ever have been made.
27. 27Moses only ministered, which many creatures do; creating belongs to God's one Word alone, and even the unique sun is not sufficient by itself for its task.
28. 28Creatures share their tasks and need one another, which cannot be said of the Word; and Asterius's claim that the Son learned to create would make Wisdom something acquired and losable.
29. 29A taught creator would imply envy and weakness in God; the Father still works, his will suffices, and the Son was not made merely as a tool for creating us.
30. 30If the Son were made for our sake as an instrument, we would be prior to him in God's purpose, which is absurd; rather, he is the Son whom God wills first.
31. 31We exist for the Word, not he for us; the Father creates through his own Word as light shines by its radiance, and the Word needs no instruction, unlike the creatures who question God.
32. 32The Arians fight not with the church but with God's own testimony; Scripture's images of radiance and impress show the Word's eternity, and they suffice without prying into how.
33. 33A word from a mind and radiance from the sun are proper to their source, eternal with it, and do not divide it; so the Son is from the Father without division or beginning.
34. 34Even bodily offspring do not divide their parents; the faith first taught to every Christian knew an eternal Son, until the Arian tares were sown with their objections from human generation and human words.
35. 35God's Word is not like a passing human word: as God is eternal, so is his Word, living, active, and creative, perfect offspring of the perfect.
36. 36The manner of the Son's begetting is ineffable and should not be pried into; when at a loss one should believe in silence, and the one Word of the one God abides unchanging.
37. 37The Arians posit a second, true Word and Wisdom in God, making the Son only notionally Word and Wisdom; Athanasius quotes Asterius's argument from 1 Cor 1:24 and Rom 1:20.
38. 38If the Son were Word, Wisdom, and Son only in name, he would be nothing in himself; and an unoriginate Wisdom coexisting with God is either the Son or makes God composite.
39. 39Scripture speaks of God's “words” only as commandments given through the one Word; it knows no second Word or Wisdom, which the Arians invent as the Manichees invent another god.
40. 40The only unoriginate Wisdom coexisting with God is the Son; even Asterius, writing against pagans, confessed one Word and one Wisdom, contradicting himself.
41. 41The Son is named with the Father in baptism not because the Father is insufficient but because grace given by the Father is always given in his Son, as light shines by its radiance.
42. 42Grace comes from the Father in the Son; those who deny the true Son, like the Jews who rejected him, endanger even baptism, which requires right faith together with the names.
43. 43Heretical baptism with the right names but wrong faith is profitless; the Arians, backed by human patronage, are worse than heresies that err about Christ's body, since they blaspheme the Father's own Godhead in the Son.
44. 44Prov 8:22 is a proverb and must be interpreted by asking who speaks; Wisdom, the creator, speaks of the “house” she built, the body the Word took.
45. 45“He created” said of Wisdom does not mean “I am a creature”; Scripture uses “creature” for things created in their very substance, and “created” can refer to something that happens to someone.
46. 46Scripture often uses “create” for renewal (a clean heart, the new man, a new people), so “the Lord created me” refers to the humanity of the Word, not his substance.
47. 47As the Word “became flesh,” “a curse,” and “sin” without being changed into them, so he was “created” by taking a created body for our salvation and deification.
48. 48A “beginning” shares the nature of what follows it, as Reuben with his brothers or the first part of a city with the rest; creatures come to be together by kinds, so a created Word could be neither alone nor first.
49. 49Creatures, even the angelic powers, come into being together by kinds; the Word, who is “before all” and alone Son, is therefore not the first of creatures but their creator, like none of them.
50. 50Prov 8:22 says “for the works,” so it cannot describe a Word who is before all things; the Son calls the Father “Lord” only as having taken the form of a servant.
51. 51As adopted children call their Lord “Father” by grace, the Son calls his Father “Lord” in his humanity; and “created for the works” refers to a task given after being, as with Adam, Noah, and Moses.
52. 52“Formed to gather Israel” (Isa 49:5) and “created for the works” refer to a mission to things that already existed; like a son disguised to recover his father's property, the Word put on our flesh.
53. 53Scripture gives a reason (“for the works”) only when it speaks of the Word's becoming flesh; of his Godhead it speaks absolutely, since the Father's radiance has no cause beyond the Father.
54. 54Christ speaks of his divinity without giving any reason, but of his incarnation he gives the reason: the need of human beings for life, light, truth, and deliverance from the devil.
55. 55The Word came for our sake, to die, raise us, and condemn sin; as he creates in himself the “one new man,” he can say “he created me” of himself, as he is said to become sin and a curse for us.
56. 56“He created me” is said for our sake, since we are created in Christ; but Prov 8:25, “he begets me,” speaks of the Son's generation without giving any reason, showing that he is Son, not creature.
57. 57Scripture says “made” of creatures and “begot” of the Son, and “in the beginning was” of the Word; creatures began to be, but the Word has his being without beginning in the Father.
58. 58John's “was” excludes any interval before the Son; in Deut 32, Moses puts “made” before “begot,” showing that human beings are made by nature and only afterwards called begotten by grace.
59. 59Human beings are made by nature and become sons by grace, through receiving the Spirit of the true Son; the Word became flesh so that humanity could receive Godhead.
60. 60The “but” joining Prov 8:22 and 8:25 shows that the begetting before all things precedes and differs from the creating as “beginning of ways,” which refers to the incarnation.
61. 61God is first creator, then Father of human beings by grace; but he is first Father of the Word and afterwards his creator in the flesh; so Christ is our brother and “firstborn,” his flesh saved first.
62. 62“Only-begotten” describes the Son's relation to the Father; “firstborn” describes his condescension to creation and his making many his brothers.
63. 63“Firstborn of all creation” sets the Son apart from creation; he is firstborn among brothers by the flesh, from the dead by the resurrection, and of creation by the Father's love that will set creation free.
64. 64If “firstborn” meant a creature among creatures, the Son would be brother to beasts and stones; he is firstborn because he condescended to creation both in making it and in entering the world to make all sons.
65. 65The way through Adam was lost; the Word put on created flesh to open a new and living way, becoming the beginning of the new creation.
66. 66As “beginning” of the resurrection the Word was created in the flesh, taking an incomplete body to pay our debt and complete what man lacked: immortality and the way to paradise.
67. 67The Word received the works to complete when he became man; only one who is God, not a creature, could join humanity to God and undo God's own sentence of death.
68. 68God could have undone the curse by a word, but what he does is chosen for what profits us; a mere command would have left grace external and humanity ever falling again.
69. 69No creature could save creation; the Son took flesh, died for all, and in his flesh destroyed sin and death, so that we, joined to him, shall be free of the serpent and of death.
70. 70Only if the Word is true God and his flesh truly human could humanity be freed and deified; Arians who deny the first are as wrong as Valentinians who deny the second.
71. 71“For works” shows the Word to be other than the works, as one who enters a house is not the house; he is God's hand and wisdom, and the three youths call on all works to praise but never the Word.
72. 72Scripture distinguishes the Word from all works: he judges and sets free, while all creation groans for freedom; Athanasius then turns to Prov 8:23, “before the age he founded me.”
73. 73Wisdom, by whom the earth was founded, was “founded” for us as the foundation of the new creation; the decisive question, which even the devil asked, is whether he is the Son.
74. 74“He founded me” (Prov 8:23) refers to the Word's taking flesh, so that, like a stone set as foundation, he might bear us who are built on him as living stones.
75. 75“Before the age” refers to God's eternal purpose of salvation prepared in the Word before creation, since God foreknew the fall, as 2 Tim 1:9–10 and Eph 1:3–5 teach.
76. 76Our election, adoption, and inheritance “before the foundation of the world” were founded in the Word, so that when the world passes away our life, prepared in Christ, will endure.
77. 77Like an architect who provides for repairs before building, God founded our renewal in Christ before creation; Athanasius then introduces a further sense of Prov 8:22.
78. 78A second reading of Prov 8:22: the Wisdom that is “created” is the image of divine Wisdom stamped on creation and on us, which the true Wisdom speaks of as its own.
79. 79Scripture speaks of a wisdom poured out on creation and on human beings; the true Wisdom calls this impress of itself “created,” as a prince might say his name was built into his father's city.
80. 80As Christ said “Why are you persecuting me?” of his church, so Wisdom speaks of her created impress as herself; the words “before all the hills he begets me” guard her uncreated nature.
81. 81Wisdom harmonized her impress with creation so that the world might know God; when the world failed, the same Wisdom became flesh and died on the cross to reveal the Father more fully.
82. 82The Father's eternal delight in his Son, his image, shows the Son to be proper to his substance; Prov 8 thus proves the Son is not a creature but the Father's own offspring.