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ceeds to declare, “that God made the Son the origin (or beginning) of creation, being Himself unoriginate, and adopted Him to be His Son; who, on the other hand, has no property of divinity in His own Hypostasis, not being equal, nor consubstantial with Him; that God is invisible, not only to the creatures created through the Son, but to the Son Himself; that there is a Trinity, but not with an equal glory, the Hypostases being incommunicable with each other, One infinitely more glorious than the other; that the Father is foreign in substance to the Son, as existing unoriginate; that by God's will the Son became Wisdom, Power, the Spirit, the Truth, the Word, the Glory, and the Image of God; that the Father, as being Almighty, is able to give existence to a being equal to the Son, though not superior to Him; that, from the time that He was made, being a mighty God, He has hymned the praises of His Superior; that He cannot investigate His Father's nature, it being plain that the originated cannot comprehend the unoriginate; nay, that He does not know His
4. On the receipt of the letter from Arius, which was the first document here exhibited, Eusebius of Nicomedia addressed a letter to Paulinus of Tyre, of which the following is an extract :-“We have neither heard of two Ingenerates, nor of One divided into two, subjected to any material affection; but of One Ingenerate, and one generated by Him really; not from His sub
2 Incommunicable, å veniuikToi, (this is in opposition to the trepixápnois, or co-inherence); foreign in substance gévos kat' ovolav; investigate, εξιχνιάσαι.
stance, not partaking of the nature of the Ingenerate at all, but made altogether other than He in nature and in power, though made after the perfect likeness of the character and excellence of His Maker. But, if He were of Him in the sense of 'from Him,' as if a part of Him,or from the effluence of His substances, Hewould not be spoken of in Scripture) as created or established ... for what exists as being from the Ingenerate ceases to be created or established, as being from its origin ingenerate. But, if His being called generate suggests the idea that He is made out of the Father's substance, and has from Him a sameness of nature, we know that not of Him alone does Scripture use the word 'generate,' but also of things altogether unlike the Father in nature. For it says of men, 'I have begotten sons and exalted them, and they have set Me at nought;' and, Thou hast left the God who begat thee;' and in other instances, as 'Who has given birth to the drops of dew?'... Nothing is of His substance; but all things are made at His will."
5. Alexander, in his public accusation of Arius and his party to Alexander of Constantinople, writes thus :“They say that once the Son of God was not, and that He, who before had no existence, was at length made, made such, when He was made, as any other man is by nature. Numbering the Son of God among created things, they are but consistent in adding that He is of an alterable nature, capable of virtue and vice. ... When it is urged on them that the Saviour differs from others, called sons of God, by the unchangeableness of His nature, stripping off all reverence, they answer, that God, foreknowing and foreseeing His obedience, chose Him out of all creatures; chose Him, I say, not as possessing aught by nature and prerogative above the others (since, as they say, there is no Son of God by nature), nor bearing any peculiar relation towards God; but, as being, as well as others, of an alterable nature, and preserved from falling by the pursuit and exercise of virtuous conduct; so that, if Paul or Peter had made such strenuous progress, they would have gained a sonship equal to His.”
3 Generated, yeyovós ; effluence of His substance, ég åtroppolas cas ουσίας ; being from the Ingenerate, εκ του αγεννήτου υπάρχον.
In another letter, which was addressed to the Churches, he says, “It is their doctrine, that God was not always a Father,' that the Word of God has not always existed, but was made out of nothing; for the self-existing God made Him, who once was not, out of what once was not. . . Neither is He like the Father in substance, nor is He the true and natural Logos of the Father, nor His true Wisdom, but one of His works and creatures; and He is catachrestically the Word and Wisdom, inasmuch as He Himself was made by the proper Logos of God, and by that Wisdom which is in God, by which God made all things, and Him in the number. Hence He is mutable and alterable by nature, as other rational beings; and He is foreign and external to God's substance, being excluded from it. He was made for our sakes, in order that God might create us by Him as by an instrument; and He would not have had subsistence, had not God willed our making.' Some one asked them, if the Word of God could change, as the devil
changed? They scrupled not to answer, 'Certainly, He can “.."
More than enough has now been said in explanation of a controversy, the very sound of which must be painful to any one who has a loving faith in the Divinity of the Son. Yet so it has been ordered, that He who was once lifted up to the gaze of the world, and hid not His face from contumely, has again been subjected to rude scrutiny and dishonour in the promulgation of His religion to the world. And His true followers have been themselves obliged in His defence to raise and fix their eyes boldly on Him, as if He were one of them. selves, dismissing the natural reverence, which would keep them ever at His feet. The subject may be dismissed with the following remarks :
1. First, it is obvious to notice the unscriptural character of the arguments on which the heresy was founded. It is true that the Arians did not neglect to support their case from such detached portions of the Inspired Volume as suited their purpose; but still it can never be said that they showed that earnest desire of sacred truth, and careful search into its documents, which alone mark the Christian inquirer. The question is not merely whether they confined themselves to the language of Scripture, but whether they began with the study of it. Doubtless, to forbid in controversy the
4 Like in substance, quoios Kat' ovolav [This, as we shall see after. wards, in the Homæusian, the symbol of the Eusebians or Semi-Arians], mutable and alterable, τρεπτός και αλλοιωτός; excluded, απεσχοινισμένος.
use of all words but those which actually occur in Scripture, is a superstition, an encroachment on Scripture liberty, and an impediment to freedom of thought; and especially unreasonable, considering that a traditional system of theology, consistent with, but independent of, Scripture, has existed in the Church from the Apostolic age. '“Why art thou in that excessive slavery to the letter," says Gregory Nazianzen, “and employest a Judaical wisdom, dwelling upon syllables, while letting slip realities? Suppose, on thy saying twice five, or twice seven, I were to understand thence ten or fourteen ; or, if I spoke of a man, when thou hadst named an animal rational and mortal, should I in that case appear to thee to trifle ? How could I so appear, in merely expressing your own meaning 5 ?" But, inasmuch as this liberty was an evangelical privilege, which might be allowed to the Arian disputants, on the other hand it was a dangerous privilege also, ever to be subjected to a profound respect for the sacred text, a cautious adherence to the whole of the doctrine therein contained, and a regard also for those received statements, which, though not given to us as inspired, probably are derived from inspired teachers. Now the most liberal admission which can be made in behalf of the Arians, is, to grant that they did not in controversy throw aside the authority of Scripture altogether; that is, proclaim themselves unbelievers ; for it is evident that they took only just
5 Petav. iv. 5, $ 6. [Athanasius ever exalts the theological sense over the words, whether sacred or ecclesiastical, which are its vehicle, and this even to the apparent withholding of the symbol (Mootolov. Vide Orat. ii. 3, and Ath. Tr. p. 17, m; p. 76, i.; p. 157, i; p. 210, e; p. 264, g; p. 524, b.]