文集 第 2 章 第 4/8 段

And if He once received, it is necessary that He always receive, and nonetheless with equal superabundance always also generate. But if He has not received increases, which we ourselves also confess, He neither flows nor overflows. Since the Father is said to be such, when He begot the Son from Himself, He surely divided His substance into the Son; and only the previously paternal substance, separated and cut off from Himself in due proportion, He named the Son: and the Father subtracted from Himself as much as He conferred upon the Son. Yet by that very thing, whatever the Son is, either the Father today lacks it and is not perfect; or, if He does not need it, He abounded in it as in something superfluous.

Both of which do not befall God, since in this very case the name of Father and Son cannot exist, where there has not been a generation, but rather a tearing-apart has been made: and then, because it is necessary that everything which can be divided can be corrupted. If these things, as has been shown, cannot be in God, why do we not rather confess that the Son is the Son of will and of love? Which will, indeed, is not less free even in men, much less is it held by any law in God. But if the Son is not the Son of will, it remains that God seems, compelled as it were by some law of nature, to have brought forth the Son. In which generation, indeed, if that was begotten which the Father was, then a certain part of the Father is named the Son;

and it is uncertain what ought to be named Father, what Son, since the substance is divided equally into two parts. XI. But as for that testimony of the paternal oracle which he brought forth, as if to demonstrate the propriety of the natural substance, so that we might rightly believe that the Father begot the Son from that which He Himself is, because He said: 'From the womb before the morning star I begot thee' (Ps. 109:3), how absurd and how foolish that is, I will most plainly demonstrate. For we read that not only certain things consisting in the order of rational creatures, but also things subsisting in the sensible quality of the elements, have proceeded from the womb of God. For He says: 'Who is the father of the rain, or from whose womb proceeds the snow?' (Job 38:28)

Now then, because this quality of a rigid and torpid element is read to proceed from a divine womb, is it on that account believed to be of one and the same substance with God? Or because we again read that men have begotten God (as He Himself says: 'I have begotten sons and exalted them' [Isa. 1:2], and again: 'My son, my firstborn, Israel' [Exod. 4:22], and once more: 'Everyone who is born of God does not sin' [1 John 3:9])—shall we therefore more rightly suppose that men are of one substance with God? Or because likewise the Apostle, comprehending the whole universe of every creature in a general pronouncement, asserts that it is from God, saying: 'For from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things' [Rom. 11:36]—

shall we on this account more prudently conjecture that the whole universe of creatures is the same as God, or is of one substance with Him, namely because it is read to have subsisted out of Him? In the same way, therefore, when we confess that the Son too proceeded from the womb of God the Father, this is not said to indicate one nature, but ought fittingly to be received as spoken concerning the secret mysteries of things unsearchable. XII. Athanasius said: In theatrical performances, those who are transformed by a variety of figures appear to the eyes of the spectators as differing and other than themselves. For the very same man who once strode stiffly in the guise of a fitted image, again, his countenance refashioned to this very purpose, playing with alternating movements of his limbs, dissolves into the softness of women.

So now Arius seems to me, with the images of his questions changed about, to be shaped as it were by a variety of likeness, as though conjecturing diverse things. For what he had just attempted with neat and very brief objections of argument, repeating it again and more often under the pretext of another image, he by no means departs in any way from the proper character of the question he raised. For not because he now stretches out the sequence of his proposition more broadly and diffusely with a tangled wandering of words, is he therefore to be regarded as having done anything other than what he is convicted of having repeatedly done above.

For he said that for this reason the Father and the Son cannot be of one substance: because the same paternal substance can neither overflow into an increase of abundance by the surplus of a most ample derivation (inasmuch as, being driven by no boundaries of limits, it could be confined by no terminal measures, since to overflow belongs to that abundance which, as we said, is enclosed by a fixed end); nor again has it suffered any failure, as it were, of a whole and inviolate portion. But all these kinds of suffering, unbefitting the divine nature, he is recognized to have already alleged above more slanderously than truthfully. To these things it is established that we have fittingly given an answer by the understanding of religious faith. XIII.

For we do not call the Son an overflowing of a substance that runs over, nor again do we name Him a little portion of a nature cut off; but we believe Him to be perfect Father, perfect Son, born—not from those superfluous overflowings that abounded in Him (which it is impious to say)—but from Himself, that is, from that which He Himself is: impassibly, indivisibly, incorporeally, without diminution, without cutting apart, without any overflowing of abounding abundance, without any kind of suffering whatsoever, ineffably. And therefore we confess Him to be of one substance, because not from elsewhere, not from nothing, not from underlying or preceding qualities of matter;

but we faithfully confess that He has existed properly as God from God, light from light, power from power, wisdom from wisdom. For if the Son were of another and different substance (as Arius supposes), He would not say: 'As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself' [John 5:26]; and again: 'As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father' [John 10:15]. What then is, 'As the Father has life in Himself, so He has given to the Son also to have life in Himself,' but, 'As the Father is, so also is the Son'? And if they have the same being, they are without doubt of one substance. For the being of the Father is not one thing and to live another, but to live is the very thing that is also to be;

that is, the Father Himself is not one thing and His life another, but the life is the essence, and the essence is the life. Otherwise He would appear composite, subsisting out of diversity, if it should seem that He is one thing and His life signifies another. Since therefore it appears that the life of the Father is the very thing that He Himself is—as He has life in Himself, so He has given the Son to have life—that is, so is the being of the Son as the being of the Father: there is no doubt that the Father and the Son are of one essence and of one nature. XIV. For also what He says: 'As the Father knows me, and I know the Father' [John 10:15], He without doubt willed to indicate unity of substance; because, according to the understanding of the discussion above, the knowing of the Father is not one thing and His being another.

For this very thing that He is, He knows; and what He knows, that He is; because He does not know in one way and exist in another. And since the Son so knows the Father, as the Father knows Him—and we have said that in God knowledge is the essence—there is no doubt that as the Father is, so also is the Son; and thus a thing which subsists in one and the same manner admits no diversity of essence. Finally, that we might more fully know this substance of the unity of the Father and the Son, certain examples of visible things in the divine Scriptures have been set before us, by which they might more religiously summon us to the understanding of invisible things. For they have set the Son forth as the splendor of the paternal light and the Image of His goodness;

not as though examples of bodily kinds were adequate for measuring divine realities; but because that ineffable nature could not be expressed, certain indications of likeness are brought forth from these things which are seen. So that, just as splendor and fire are not of different substances; or just as an image cannot differ in anything from that of which it is the image (lest, retaining thus something diverse in itself, it should not be able to be perfect and true)—so the Father and the Son are to be believed to be not of different, but of one substance. And because he brought forth, by way of example, some testimonies by which he might build the claim that all things are so from God that they are nevertheless not to be believed to have proceeded from His substance;

I ask whether he asserts that the Son has existed from the Father in the same way as all things are related to have existed from Him. What then do you say? Are we to understand that the Son proceeded from the Father's womb, or was begotten from the Father, in the same way as men are born of God, or as nothing is read to proceed from His womb—or far otherwise? But I ask that you answer one of two: that is, say either 'similarly' or 'not similarly.' XV. Arius said: Not similarly have all things existed or been begotten from God as the Son has. For the Son existed in one way, the creature in another. Athanasius said: If you confess that the Son existed far otherwise than the creature, why in the generation of His nativity did you bring forth examples of made things?

For those which have taken the beginnings of their own origin by unequal modes do not seem to be compared by an equal sense of understanding. Since the intent of your pursuit inclines this way, it appears that you are defending the sacrilegious error of the dogma of Photinus, which you formerly repudiated. For he too, when he denied that the Son of God was begotten of the Father, and was hard pressed by such proofs of testimonies, by which it is shown clearer than light that the Son of God is truly and properly God begotten of the Father's substance—he turned the engines of his impiety to this: that by the same modes and the same order of reasoning he might assert that the Son was born of the Father just as men, through the grace of adoption, we read have been consecrated into offspring of the divine generation.

To this same crossroads of unbelief you too have arrived, though walking by other marks of the way: asserting that the Son ought not to be understood to have been born from that ineffable substance of the Father merely because He is read to have been begotten of God or to have proceeded from the Father's womb—since, by a like reasoning, not only men are read to be born of God, but even the qualities of insensible elements are read to have proceeded by the generation of a paternal womb. And although you have already dissolved the whole narrative of your pursuit by the pronouncement of a single utterance, when you said that the Son existed divinely far otherwise than the creature: yet because you set these things forth too obscurely and confusedly through the brevity of your speech, you have beclouded the attention of readers with certain murky mists:

therefore now I, more lucidly and plainly, will bring forth into the manifestation of clearest understanding those things which are obscure and overshadow the truth. XVI. I shall show, then, as far as pertains to the property of the divine generation, that to be born of God is the very thing that is to be begotten of Him. And that I may use more manifest testimonies of the divine Scriptures, I shall bring forth an evangelical document. The Angel speaks thus to Mary, saying: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God' [Luke 1:35]. And again the Apostle: 'But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, made under the law' [Gal. 4:4].

Now then, because the Angel so addressed Mary as to say that the Son was to be begotten not of her, but from her; because the Apostle asserted that the Son was born of a woman—shall we on this account by no means profess the nativity of a true man in Christ; or shall we believe that He proceeded from the virginal womb extrinsically and not properly? You see, then, that you have superfluously brought forth examples of visible creatures in the nativity of the divine generation? since by clearer proofs of testimonies it appears that to be 'from Him' is the same as to be 'begotten of Him.' Whence I confess that I marvel how, while you shun the name of 'creature' in the Son;

and yet you believe Him to have been begotten of the Father not as made, but truly (as it ought to be professed)—you have in a certain manner imitated the dogma of that impiety of Photinus, even if not in entire, yet in similar sentiments of your pursuits. Arius said: Who rather follows the perfidy of Photinus—I, who take the things which the Son spoke to demonstrate a nature far inferior to His divinity and not in all things similar, as spoken according to His deity; or you yourself, who reckon almost all examples of humanity, not as feigned words nor as effected by the working of a simulated act, to the assumed man? For that He might show Himself not only other but also inferior to the Father, He said: 'The Father is greater than I' [John 14:28].

By which profession it is more evidently declared that the substances of the Father and the Son are different. XVII. Athanasius said: Do you profess that the Son of God, who is God, took on the servile form of our kind, or not? Arius said: What impious man would deny this, namely that Christ, who is God, is likewise to be confessed as true man? Athanasius said: Ought we then to ascribe some of the things which Christ spoke to the divinity, some to the humanity; or, without any distinction of partition, to assign all things either to God or to the man? Arius said: This would be thought to be not only irreligious, but also of the greatest madness: that we should suppose Him to have spoken all things either according to divinity or according to humanity. Athanasius said:

If, then, according to the sentence of your profession, some things are to be ascribed to the divinity, but some to the humanity, why should we not reckon what He says, 'The Father is greater than I' [ibid.], to the humanity; and what He says, 'I and the Father are one' [John 10:30], to the divinity? For that you may know that He said 'He is greater than I' according to what He was as man, He says: 'If you loved me, you would surely rejoice, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I' [John 14:28]. I ask therefore: since the Son, according to the power of His divinity, fills all things, and there is no place void of that same divinity (inasmuch as He fills heaven and earth and the lower regions with equal omnipotence);

how does He say, 'I go to the Father,' with whom He both always was and from whom He never departed (for to go and to come belongs to him who is circumscribed by certain limits of places, so that, deserting the place in which he was, he may come to another where he was not)—unless because He was certainly speaking concerning that man whom He had assumed, that He Himself was going to go to the Father, from whom He is also to come to judge the living and the dead? But as for the divinity, which, as we said, filling all things, is bounded by no spaces of places: just as there is nothing whence it may depart, so there is nothing whither it may come. XVIII. And in this way it appears that, according to what He is as man, He is less not only than the Father, but even than the angels. For if according to what He is as God, He were

to be taken as less, then by an equal necessity of condition He would also seem to be less than the angels according to the nature of His divinity. Finally, the Apostle says: 'Thou hast made him a little less than the angels' [Heb. 2:7]. If therefore by no reasoning is it admitted that according to what He is as God He should be held less than the angels, it appears that this office of diminution is to be reckoned not to God the Word, but to the assumed man. The judge Probus said: That your assertion may in all things be supported by truth, it is fitting that from the divine testimonies, by the reading of them, you approve that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one substance. Athanasius said:

Since I perceive that your excellency presses most urgently and faithfully toward this matter—that we should demonstrate the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one substance, and approve from the divine volumes that the Son was born of the Father's substance—although the whole tenor of my pursuits is shown to be such that, just as the human race or the race of any animals begets offspring like to its own substance, and neither does man beget an ox nor an ox a man, but each thing procreates according to its own likeness, that is, of its own substance: I surely ought not to marvel that God was able to generate a Son of His own substance, to whom all power is subject.

But that my discourse may not range beyond the testimony of the Scriptures, I undertake, fortified by His help, to approve from the divine oracles that the Son was ineffably born of the Father's substance; so that when, by the lucid pathway of disputation—not coming from the argument of philosophical art, but, as I said, from divine documents—I shall have shown it, then at last let Arius fall silent, when he shall have recognized, by the legal words and with me teaching, that the Son was begotten of the paternal substance. XIX. The apostle Paul, writing of the Son to the Hebrews, says: 'Since He is,' he says, 'the image of the invisible God, and bearing the figure of His substance' [Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:15]. Jeremiah also, most prudent of the prophets, preaches in the person of God the Father, and says:

'If they had stood in my substance, and had heard my word, I would have turned them away from their most wicked pursuits' [Jer. 23:22, acc. to LXX]: and that he might prove he had said this of the Son, the same prophet adds and says: 'Who has stood in my substance, and seen my word?' [ibid. 18]. For that the Word is the Son, the prophet David testifies in the person of the Father, saying: 'My heart has uttered a good Word' [Ps. 44:2]. John too the evangelist, knowing the Word, that is the Son, to be from the beginning with the Father, and that the Word was never separated from the Father; at the beginning of the Gospel, that is of his announcement, set it down saying: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' [John 1:1].

And again in another place Scripture has handed down, saying: 'The beginning of the work is the Word' [Sir. 37:20]. Not that in the creation of the Word, that is, from the creation of the Son, He began to make the other creatures: but because through the Word of God, that is, through the Son, all things are known to be created. Whence the prophet David sings and says: 'By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established' [Ps. 32:6]. And that he might show the Holy Spirit to be the companion of this work, he continued, saying: 'and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power.' There are, finally, many divine Scriptures bearing testimony of the Son, by which it is demonstrated that He was begotten of the substance of the Father, that is, of that which He Himself is: of which substance the Son is proved not merely similar to the Father.

This is the faith which Christ handed down to the apostles, and from the apostles has come even to us. Nor can we change it in anything, which it is established that we ought faithfully to preserve from the beginning, as it was given. XX. The judge Probus said: Although by a fitting order of disputation the intent of your discourse is carried through various byways of questions, and as it were, necessarily deviating a little from the proposed straight line of correctness, it strays into the oblique winding of a tortuous path—precisely for this reason, traversing every out-of-the-way place, so that it may leave absolutely nothing unexplored, nothing untouched; nevertheless, since the pursuit of Arius, which he had formerly entangled in tighter knots of questions, leaves this wavering sense of doubt to the hearers;

since not all, but only certain chapters of his objection seem dissolved by the answers of Athanasius, it seems consequent to me that, to expedite the remaining matters in which the attention of the hearers is most caught, Athanasius ought to bend back the course of his discourse. Indeed, that thing moves a greater scruple of hesitation in us, which the same Arius said: that the Father did not generate the Son naturally, lest indeed He should seem to lie subject to natural necessities of conditions; but produced Him by the voluntary affection of love, so that through this an indication of free power might be demonstrated in God; and thus He should be understood to have generated rather extrinsically and from elsewhere, than from Himself:

and rightly, that the Son is to be believed to be of the affection of paternal will and of love rather than of nature; whom (as has been said) He is recognized to have produced by will, and not by natural law. Since therefore, as I said, Athanasius is evidently shown to have omitted the solution of this knotty question (whether through forgetfulness or difficulty); now, if it seems good, let the intent of his answer be directed against those things which, on account of its prolixity, perhaps escaped his discourse. XXI. Arius said: Well, with a most skillful intention of mind, as a most vigilant examiner, you employ more cautious provisions. For this article of the question had nearly slipped from my memory.

Let Athanasius therefore declare how, if the Father generated the Son naturally, He is not held bound by the necessities of nature; where it is not will, but the force of nature that grants the capacity of generating. For it is necessary that those things which are done by natural motions cannot be free, and that the Father is so much the less free in the affection of His will, as the laws of His nature hold dominion. Athanasius said: Than these things which Arius prattles, as though by an inexpugnable question, nothing more inept, nothing more absurd could ever be found; and on this account I had thought it unworthy to assail them even with a reply, since whoever prefers to refute things most foolishly said is wont sometimes to incur the brand of folly himself.

Since therefore he trusts that very much help lies for him in the same question, which, as though an inevitable little snare of the syllogistic art, he thought he should inflict with the supercilious haughtiness of a wanton boastfulness, let him answer whether he professes God to be mutable or immutable. Arius said: I profess Him immutable. Athanasius said: You confess Him therefore to be good, wise, just, omnipotent, and perfect. Arius said: Yes indeed. Athanasius said: Is He immutable by will, or unchangeable by nature? Arius said: I do not sufficiently understand what you say. XXII. The judge Probus said: What he inquires is very clear, and is veiled by no covering of obscurity.

For he asks whether you say God is immutable by will or by nature. That is, this very thing, that God is believed to be good and wise—is He such by will, or by the privilege of His majesty and by a certain right of nature does He abound in these affections of virtues? Arius said: I dare rashly to pronounce none of these. The judge Probus said: Deliberate therefore what answer you ought to give. If you deny both, you hold neither: and thus you will be an exile from the piety of the divine profession, if you retain no opinion of religious faith concerning God. Or if you choose one of two, lest you be held void of the divine profession, say whether God is to be professed immutable by will or by nature. Athanasius said:

By what surges of answering, hemmed in by such great straits, he is agitated, lies more manifestly open to the senses of the hearers. For perceiving himself ensnared in the inextricable nets of my inquiry, he was unwilling to profess God immutable either by will or by nature; but with industrious cunning he kept silent about both, who recognized that he would be caught in either. But let us see how he who, in speaking, more arrogantly prescribed limits for himself, may by keeping silent have more advisedly provided for himself. For he said that the Father by no means generated the Son by nature, but by will, lest indeed He should seem subject to certain necessities of nature. From whom, when I persistently asked whether he called God immutable by will or by nature, for this reason he kept silent about both.

For if he said immutable by nature, he would utterly overturn the whole question he had raised; or certainly he would have fallen into it as into a kind of pit of deeper precipice; it would be necessary for us to turn back upon him the darts of his own question, and at once to retort: If God is immutable by nature, He is without doubt to be professed neither good nor bad; because everything which, according to you, is borne by natural motions, lacks the choice of liberty, which the final boundary of nature holds enclosed within the limits of its condition: and He would be like any one of the elements, like water or earth, which can be nothing other than what it is;

since it can neither be increased by better advances, nor relapse into worse, the laws of nature restraining it. XXIII. But since he asserts that God is rather to be professed by will than by nature—while he believes the Son to have been begotten by the will of paternal affection and necessity, not by natural power—let him hear what an absurd sense of reasoning follows the understanding of this profession. It will therefore be necessary that God be increased by the advance of a better choice, while by a good choosing of things and by the reckoning of perfected virtues, He tends to the heights with a more prosperous success: and that there be someone superior to Him, whom He strives to please through the effect of good will. From whom it is to be feared lest He fall away somewhere, if perchance the intention of good will should desert Him;

since it is necessary that one who enjoys no support of natural aid should sometimes be assailed by the affection of a sinister will. The more irreligiously these things are said of God, the more wickedly are they thought. You perceive then (O best of judges) that Arius, by a certain instinct of the greatest impiety, willed to compare the rights of the divine nature and the substance of an unstained power with the natures of made things; namely, that for this reason the Father generated the Son not by nature, but by will, lest, in the manner of creatures whether rational or lacking reason, He should seem subject to natural necessities.

But let whoever holds such things have the judgment of his own opinion, about to bear from the Majesty a penal sentence, for judging things so inept, so sacrilegious. We, however, instructed by the teaching of the divine letters, retain this sentence of religious opinion concerning God: that we do not believe His will to be one thing and His nature another. XXIV. For in that we confess Him wise, good, omnipotent, and perfect, we do not assert God to subsist as it were out of a diversity of virtues, and to be composed of the quality of some distinct thing; because He is not wise except inasmuch as He is omnipotent, except inasmuch as He is perfect; that is, in Him goodness is not one thing, wisdom another, nor omnipotence other than what perfection is: