Works Athanasius of Alexandria (295-373) De decretis Nicaenae synodi De Decretis or Defence of the Nicene Definition

11.

For God creates, and to create is also ascribed to men; and God has being, and men are said to be, having received from God this gift also. Yet does God create as men do? or is His being as man’s being? Perish the thought; we understand the terms in one sense of God, and in another of men. For God creates, in that He calls what is not into being, needing nothing thereunto; but men work some existing material, first praying, and so gaining the wit to make, from that God who has framed all things by His proper Word. And again men, being incapable of self-existence, are enclosed in place, and consist in the Word of God; but God is self-existent, enclosing all things, and enclosed by none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature 1. As then men create not as God creates, as their being is not such as God’s being, so men’s generation is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another 2. For the offspring of men are portions of their fathers, since the very nature of bodies is not uncompounded, but in a state of flux 3, and composed of parts; and men lose their substance in begetting, and again they gain substance from the accession of food. And on this account men in their time become fathers of many children; but God, being without parts, is Father of the Son without partition or passion; for there is neither effluence 4 of the Immaterial, nor influx from without, as among men; and being uncompounded in nature, He is Father of One Only Son. This is why He is Only-begotten, and alone in the Father’s bosom, and alone is acknowledged by the Father to be from Him, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased 5.’ And He too is the Father’s Word, from which may be understood the impassible and impartitive nature of the Father, in that not even a human word is begotten with passion or partition, much less the Word of God 6. Wherefore also He sits, as Word, at the Father’s right hand; for where the Father is, there also is His Word; but we, as His works, stand in judgment before Him; and, while He is adored, because He is Son of the adorable Father, we adore, confessing Him Lord and God, because we are creatures and other than He.

  1. Vid. alsoIncarn.§17. This contrast is not commonly found in ecclesiastical writers, who are used to say that God is present everywhere, in substance as well as by energy or power. S. Clement, however, expresses himself still more strongly in the same way, ‘In substance far off (for how can the originate come close to the Unoriginate?), but most close in power, in which the universe is embosomed.’Strom.2.circ. init.but the parenthesis explains his meaning. Vid. Cyril.Thesaur.6. p. 44. The common doctrine of the Fathers is, that God is present everywhere insubstance.Vid. Petav.de Deo,iii. 8. and 9. It may be remarked, that S. Clement continues ‘neither enclosingnor enclosed.’  ↩

  2. In Almighty God is the perfection and first pattern of what is seen in shadow in human nature, according to the imperfection of the subject matter; and this remark applies, as to creation, so to generation. Athanasius is led to state this more distinctly in another connection inOrat.i. §21. fin. ‘It belongs to the Godhead alone,that the Father is properly( κυρίως )Father, and the Son properly( κυρίως )Son;and in Them and Them only does it hold that the Father is ever Father, and the Son ever Son.’ Accordingly he proceeds, shortly afterwards, as in the text, to argue, ‘For God does not make men His pattern,but rather we men, for that Godis properlyand alone truly Father of His own Son, are also called fathers of our own children, for “of Him is every father-hood in heaven and on earth named,”’ §23. The Semiarians at Ancyra quote the same text for the same doctrine. Epiphan.Hær.73. 5. As do Cyril inJoan.i. p. 24.Thesaur.32. p. 281. and Damascenede Fid. Orth.i. 8. The same parallel, as existing between creation and generation is insisted on by Isidor. Pel.Ep.iii. 355. Basilcontr. Eun.iv. p. 280 A., CyrilThesaur.6. p. 43. Epiph.Hær.69. 36. and Gregor. Naz.Orat.20. 9. who observes that God creates with aword,Ps. cxlviii. 5 , which evidently transcends human creations. Theodorus Abucara, with the same object, draws out the parallel of life, ζωὴ , as Athan. that of being, εἶναι .Opusc.iii. p. 420–422.  ↩

  3. Vid.de Synod.§51.Orat.i. §15, 16. ῥευστὴ. vid.Orat.i. §28. Bas. inEun.ii. 23. ῥύσιν . Bas. inEun.ii. 6. Greg. Naz.Orat.28, 22. Vid.contr. Gentes,§§41, 42; where Athan. without reference to the Arian controversy, draws out the contrast between the Godhead and human nature.  ↩

  4. S. Cyril,Dial.iv. init. p. 505 E. speaks of the θρυλλουμένη ἀποῤ& 191·οὴ, and disclaims it,Thesaur.6. p. 43. Athan. disclaims it,Expos.§1.Orat.i. §21. So does Alexander, ap. Theod.Hist.i. 3. p. 743. On the other hand, Athanasius quotes it in a passage which he adduces from Theognostus,infr.§25. and from Dionysius,de Sent. D.§23. and Origen uses it,Periarchon,i. 2. It is derived from Wisd. vii. 25 .  ↩

  5. Matt. iii. 17 .  ↩

  6. The title ‘Word’ implies the ineffable mode of the Son’s generation, as distinct frommaterialparallels, vid. Gregory Nyssen,contr. Eunom.iii. p. 107. Chrysostom inJoan. Hom.2. §4. Cyril Alex.Thesaur.5. p. 37. Also it implies that there is butOneSon. vid. infr. §16. ‘As the Origin is one essence, so its Word and Wisdom is one, essential and subsisting.’Orat.iv. 1. fin.  ↩

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Translations of this Work
De Decretis or Defence of the Nicene Definition
Über die Beschlüsse der Synode von Nizäa (BKV) Compare
Commentaries for this Work
Introduction to Defence of the Nicene Definition

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