5: Letter 40: To Adelphius, Bishop And Confessor, Against The Arians

NOTES

1 INTRODUCTION

History 22.16.17; English translation (hereafter ET): Bowman (1986) 224.

Philo, Flaccus 55, 65–71.

Expositio totius mundi et gentium 37 (SC 124).

Canon 6: “The ancient customs of Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis shall be maintained, according to which the bishop of Alexandria has authority over all these places, since a similar custom exists with reference to the bishop of Rome.” Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. I (1990) 8–9.

Roberts (1979, 54) conjectures that Valentinus and Basilides were teachers at the catechetical school.

See Stroumsa (1986).

Roberts (1979) contends that Irenaeus's writings were available in Egypt “not long after the ink was dry on the author's manuscript” (53).

We cannot be sure of the exact date of his birth. The date of 295 follows the Coptic Encomium of Athanasius in Testi Copti 21 (1968) 6–8, which states that Athanasius was 33 years old at the time of his consecration as bishop in 328. See M. Tetz, Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Bd. 4 (1979) (hereafter TRE) 333. A later date makes more plausible the accusations later brought against him that he was below the canonical age of 30 at the time of his consecration as bishop (cf. Festal Index 3).

Patrologia Orientalis I, 4 (407).

Patrologia Orientalis I, 4 (408). Tetz summarizes this “little known story” and judges it to be “not unlikely”: TRE 334.

Ibid.

History of the Arians 64.

Cf. Encomium of Athanasius in Testi Copti 17.

Stead (1988) makes a plausible case that the letter “Henos Somatos” (Urk. 4b) was written by the young Athanasius.

Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 21:6.

On Athanasius's affinities with Middle Platonic doctrine, see, especially, Meijering (1968).

Stead (1976) concludes that it is not unlikely that Athanasius had “at least a nodding acquaintance” with rhetorical textbooks; at any rate, he employs classical rhetorical methods which he might have simply “absorbed…by imitation” of other theologians (121).

Oration 21:6

Greek: philoponos; lit., “labor-loving.” On the Council of Nicaea 27.

Ibid.; on the question of the authenticity of Athanasius's quotations of Dionysius of Alexandria, see below, n. 37.

On the influence of Irenaeus on Athanasius, see Anatolios (2001).

Defense against the Arians (Apologia Contra Arianos/Apologia Secunda) 6.

Harnack (1968), Vol. 3, 139.

Epiphanius, Panarion 68.

Martin (1996) 286–298.

Martin (1996) 298.

Socrates, Ecclesiastical History I:9, ET: L’Huillier (1996) 28.

Epiphanius, Panarion 68.

The doctrinal debates of the fourth century have traditionally been referred to as the Arian controversy. Such nomenclature is misleading on two counts: first, it seems to imply that the doctrinal issues at stake were all settled in place until the Arians introduced a foreign way of thinking into the clear calm of “orthodoxy”; and secondly, it adopts the misleading strategy, practiced by Athanasius himself, of conflating all opposition to Nicene doctrine and formulation as Arian, although there was some significant variety in anti-Nicene positions. It is impossible to name a historical event or process without implying a perspectival interpretation. In referring to the controversy as the “Nicene crisis,” the perspective adopted here is one that acknowledges that the issues at stake were decisively broached at the Council of Nicaea and that their resolution, as far as the mainstream Christian tradition is concerned, came to be associated with that event in particular. This association itself owed no small part of its construction to the work of Athanasius; see, especially, his On the Council of Nicaea, below. On the construction and use of the category of “Arianism,” see, especially, Wiles (1996).

The student of this controversy nevertheless now has the advantage of several magisterial monographs produced in the last two decades, to which the present exposition is indebted. Among the most helpful are Simonetti (1975), Hanson (1988), Arnold (1991), Barnes (1993), and Martin (1996); on Arius himself, most helpful is Williams (1987, 2001).

Ecclesiastical History I.5.

Ecclesiastical History I.15.1–6.

On First Principles I, 2, 2; Commentary on John 1:204, 2:8–9.

On First Principles I, 2, 10.

Commentary on John 2:32.

Commentary on John 2:72.

The authenticity of the quotations from Dionysius of Alexandria and his Roman namesake has been denied by Abramowski (1982), who has proposed that both sets of quotations were penned in the mid-fourth century by someone attempting to mediate between Marcellus of Ancyra and Eusebius of Caesarea, shortly before the Council of Sardica of 343. Abramowski's hypothesis has been supported by Heil (1999), but rejected by Lorenz (1986) 81, n. 59; Hanson (1988) 75, n. 76; Fiege, Die Lehre Markells von Ankyra in der Darstellung seiner Gegner, EThSt 58 (Leipzig, 1991) 113–118; Simonetti, Studi sulla cristologia del II e III secolo (Rome, 1993) 274; and Williams (2001) 151, 325, n. 292. Heil does bring to light some differences in style between the supposed fragments of Dionysius quoted by Athanasius in On the Thought of Dionysius (De Sententia Dionysii), but these are not completely convincing; see the cautionary remarks by J.Leemans (review in Vigtliae Christianae 56:329–333) and M.Vinzent (Theologische Literaturzeitung 126 (2001) 10:1053–1055).

On the Opinion of Dionysius 4.

Ibid.

On the Opinion of Dionysius 15.

On the Council of Nicaea (De Decretis) 2.

Photius, Bibliotheca, Cod. 106.

Letter to Alexander of Thessalonika, Opitz, Urk. 14.

Thalia, in Athanasius, Orations against the Arians 1:5, and On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleuceia (De Synodis) 15.

Opitz, Urk. 17.

Biblical references are to the New American Bible translation of Scripture texts, with some modification.

On the Council of Nicaea 19–20.

Opitz, Urk. 24.

The reconciliation between Arius and Constantine likely followed upon a local council at Nicaea or Nicomedia, which would explain the seeming reference to a “second session” of the Council of Nicaea by Eusebius of Caesarea in his Life of Constantine 3:23 (see Hanson (1988) 174–178).

Cf. Festal Index 2.

Scholarly opinion differs considerably on the issue of the dating of this treatise, ranging from a date prior to the Nicene Council to one late in the 350s. For a good summary of the issues, see Leemans (2000) 132–135.

This is the opinion of Kannengiesser (1970).

See Festal Letter IV:5; cf. Festal Index 8.

Defense against the Arians 87.

Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History II.31.

Defense against the Arians 87.

Defense against the Arians 3–20.

Festal Index 10.

On the rivalry between Athanasius and his opponents in enlisting monastic support, see Gregg and Groh (1981).

Bartelink (1994) 314–318.

Socrates, Ecclesiastical History II, 9; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History III, 6.

Encyclical Letter 2

While a native of Cappadocia, it seems that Gregory had studied in Egypt. See Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 21:15.

History of the Arians 9.

Encyclical Letter 3; Gregory Nazianzus compares the sufferings of Athanasius's supporters under Gregory with the trials of Job: Oration 21:17. A modern historian (Barnes (1993) 45) counters that “Athanasius suppresses the fact that there was violence on both sides …it is highly improbable that his partisans failed to resist the imposition of a new bishop with all the force that they could muster.” Theoretically, that is a reasonable surmise, though the question in this particular case is just how much force Athanasius's supporters could muster in the face of the overwhelming show of force by imperial troops.

This central theme in Athanasius is given its due prominence by Tetz (1979) 304– 338.

NPNF IV, 535, adapted. The Festal Letters were Athanasius's epistles to the Church of Egypt anticipating the celebration of Easter, in keeping with the traditional practice of the bishop of Alexandria. On the manuscript tradition and dating of the Festal Letters, see, especially, Camplani (1989), Lorenz (1986), and Barnes (1993) 183–191; for a good overview of the secondary literature on this subject, see Leemans (2000) 163–167.

NPNF IV, 537, adapted. This letter was probably written while Athanasius was still in Egypt. See Martin (1996) 407.

Festal Letter XI:13; NPNF IV, 537, adapted.

Syntagmation, Fr. 14, Vinzent (1993).

Syntagmation, Fr. 10, Vinzent (1993) 86.

Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (De Synodis) 15. See also Encyclical Letter of Alexander of Alexandria (Urk. 4b), where Arius is reported as saying that the Son is “not like the Father in substance” (Opitz, AW III/I, 7:21–22).

For comparisons of the theological perspectives of Arius and Asterius, see Kopecek (1979) 29–34; Hanson (1988) 32–41; Vinzent (1993) 63–67.

The authenticity of the third oration was at one time challenged by Kannengiesser (1983b, 310–416; 1993; 1995). However, the third oration is far too similar to both the other two orations and Athanasius's corpus in general to warrant such a conclusion. For the similarity in theological thought and vocabulary, see, especially, Meijering (1996a, 11–23; 1996c); for the similarity in polemical style, see Schmidtz (1988). At an oral communication presented at the 14th International Conference on Patristics Studies in Oxford, “Die Datierung des apologetischen Früwerks und der Arianerreden,” on 19 August 2003, Kannengiesser retracted his earlier position.

There are only two direct internal indications of the date of composition: a reference to the death of Arius (1:3) and the reign of Constantius II (1:10; III:25); these place the work between 337 and 361. Athanasius's manifest reluctance to use the term “homoousios” in this treatise indicates a date prior to the mid-350s, at which point he began actively promoting the use of the term as the only sure safeguard against the “Arian heresy.” That the treatise was written during his exile in Rome is suggested by the fact that Athanasius refutes Asterius by direct quotation, to which he would have access in Rome through Marcellus, who himself had published a refutation of Asterius (ca. 336). Athanasius's use of language similar to that of the “Dedication Creed” of Antioch (341), such as references to the Son as “exact image” of the Father (I:26) and “like” (homoion; 1:26) the Father, has been taken as an indication that it was written before that date. The basis for this position is that a date posterior to that creed would signal Athanasius's approval of that creed (cf. Moutsoulas (1985)). However, it was typical of Athanasius to use his opponent's words against themselves and to press the point that the very use of such terms can only coherently lead to an acknowledgement of the full divinity of the Son (cf. Oration III:11, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 38). A date after the Council of Antioch of 341 therefore cannot be ruled out. There are intratextual indications that the second oration was written some time after the first (cf. Oration II:1) and a passage in the third oration directs the reader to a passage in the second, as having been articulated “a short while” ago (III:11, apparently referring to 11:42; see Meijering (1996a) 18, 23, 123). These indications point to a gradual process of composition, as has been suggested by Kannengiesser (1983b). Abramowski (1991) makes a good case for placing the third oration just prior to the Council of Sardica in 343. For a succinct overview of the debates regarding the dating of the Orations, see Leemans (2000) 138–144.

Kannengiesser (1993) 378.

AW II/III, 107.

AW II/III, 108–109.

This creed is reproduced by Athanasius in his On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 23.

Hanson (1988) 301 (translation slightly modified).

Lienhard categorizes the debate in terms of “miahypostatic” and “dihypostatic” traditions (1987; 1999, 28–46). It should be noted that the categories of “East” and “West” are only valid in a general, not an absolute and exceptionless sense. Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra were allied with the “Western” bishops, and the “Western” contingent of the Council of Sardica included representatives from Palestine, Arabia, and Greece.

Perhaps contributing to the emperor's change of tone was the debacle involving Stephen, the bishop of Antioch, who arranged for a prostitute to be stripped naked and clandestinely brought by night into the room of the sleeping Bishop Euphrates, one of the delegates sent by the Council of Sardica. Upon seeing the old man, the prostitute experienced compunction and betrayed her commissioner. Stephen was deposed and replaced by a bishop of anti-Nicene tendencies but irenic character, Leontius. The incident seems to have shaken Constantius's confidence in the integrity of the anti-Nicene camp as well as the veracity of their allegations against Athanasius and others. See History of the Arians 20.

In Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 11:19; Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 26

Barnes (1993) 92; cf. Festal Index 18

AW II/V, 196–197. On Athanasius's success in aligning the monastic movement with his own person and doctrinal convictions, see Brakke (1995).

On the dating, see Barnes (1993) 198–199; on the problems involved in dating this work, see below.

We have no extant record of such a formula. Nevertheless, the strength of the Western bishops’ resistance to Constantius at these councils suggests as much; Hanson (1988, 334) conjectures that the bishops were presented with a “formula which was not openly Arian but was patient of an Arian interpretation.”

AW II/III, 84–85. Cf. Historia Acephala 1.9–11 (Martin); Festal Index 28.

Defense before Constantius 30.

History of the Arians 51; cf. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21:16.

There was at this point no clear differentiation between the terminology of origination (agen(n)etos) and generation (gen(n)etos); see Prestige (1923).

See Epiphanius, Panarion 73.

ET: Hanson (1988) 364.

Dialogue against the Luciferians 19.

The Athanasian authorship of the Life of Antony is attested to by all the manuscript evidence. It has only lately been questioned, most notably by Barnes (1986) and Barnard (1994). Responses to Barnes's position and arguments in support of Athanasian authorship are ably set forth by Braake (1994) and Louth (1988). A good overview of the debate is found in Leemans (2000) 153–161.

Letter I to Serapion 27.

Oration 21:33; ET: NPNF 7, 278.

The incident is mentioned with gruesome terseness in Historia Acephala 2:10.

Letter 51.

Historia Acephala 5:2 (Martin).

Festal Index 35; Historia Acephala 3:4.

Letter to Jovian 4; PG 26:817C-819A.

Historia Acephala 5:2 (Martin).

Historia Acephala 5:6–7 (Martin).

Letter 109; PL 54:1016B.

Oration 21:37.

Journal entry for 14 April 1838, in The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, tr. Alexander Dru (London: Oxford, 1938) 58.

This portrait is represented most forcibly in Schwartz (1959) and Barnes (1981), who has famously labeled Athanasius as “a gangster” (230). For a good overview of the history of the interpretation of Athanasius's character, see Arnold (1991) 11–23.

Louth (1988) 505.

See, for example, Von Campenhausen (1959) 73.

For a thorough treatment of this issue, see Arnold (1991) 62–89.

AWII/VI, 201.

Hanson (1988) 319.

Brakke (2000, 1107) offers a quotation, in partially elided form, from a Coptic fragment of one of Athanasius's festal letters that purports to reveal him as advocating the whipping of those who exploited the martyrs’ relics for financial gain. However, the elision is misleading and the text, as translated by Brakke himself elsewhere, seems to suggest that the transgressors will be punished by Christ, just as were the money-changers in the temple, rather than to recommend their being whipped by others. This interpretation is consistent with Athanasius's common practice of assimilating his opponents to scriptural images of villainy. The text, in Brakke's unelided translation, runs as follows: “This resembles the crookedness of Jeroboam, who sold <the priesthood and those who sold> and bought doves in the temple of God, as it is written (1 Kings 12:31; Mt 21:12–13; par.). Rather it is clear without a doubt that it is those who are lawless now and are being driven out by whippings to whom the Lord said, ‘Do not make my Father's house a house of trade’ (Jn 2:16). They too will hear him say, ‘Do not sell the body of my martyrs and do not make their good confession a business for the sake of greed.’ For it is necessary for those who commit such a sin to receive the same punishment” (Brakke (1998) 478).

See Orations against the Arians (hereafter Or. Ar.) 1:1.

AW I/I.II (=Bd. I, Teil I, Lief. 2), 117.14–19.

Letter to Marcellinus 15–26.

On this theme, see, especially, Tetz (1979).

PG 26:1447C–1448A.

Translations of Against the Greeks—On the Incarnation are based on the critical edition of Thomson (1971); this passage is found in Thomson (1971) 6.

Thomson(1971) 94.

On Athanasius's anthropology, one may still usefully consult Bernard (1952) and Roldanus (1968); see also Anatolios (1998) 53–67.

Thomson(1971) 140.

On the Council of Nicaea 11.

Ibid.; AW II/I, 10.

Or. Ar. 1:20.

Thalia, in Or. Ar. 1:5; To the Bishops of Egypt (Ad Episcopos Aegypti) 12.

Or. Ar. 1:15–16.

The verb sunkatabaino (to descend with) is applied to the act of creation in Against the Greeks 47; God's creation is characterized as “mercy” in On the Incarnation (hereafter Inc.) 3, 8, 11.

Thomson (1971) 6.

For some nuances of this general view, see Armstrong (1972) 35ff.

Thomson (1971) 8.

Republic IV:440–441C.

Against the Greeks 32.

See Plato, Phaedrus 246.

Thomson (1971) 12, 14; the image of the charioteer is found in Plato's Phaedrus 246/247. On Athanasius's understanding of the human body, see Pettersen (1990) and Anatolios (1998) 62–64.

Against the Greeks 8.

188–192.

Inc. 1.

Thomson (1971) 164. The contrast drawn here between humanity as rational (logikon) and as irrational (alogon) bears implicit reference to the status of its participation in the Logos.

On human fall and descent, see Against the Greeks 8, 9, 19, 22, 23, and Inc. 16; on the Word's condescension in the Incarnation, see Inc. 3, 8, 15.

Thomson (1971) 22, 24.

Meijering (1991).

Thomson (1971) 168, 170.

Or. Ar. 1:37–1:45; cf. Or. Ar. 3:11–14.

Against the Heresies III, 24, 2; IV, 20, 1.

See Grillmeier (1975) 308–328.

Thomson (1971) 166.

Hanson (1988) 450.

Inc. 44.

Thomson (1971) 152–154.

On the theme of the Eucharist as “sacrifice” in the early Church, see Moll (1975) and Young (1979).

Inc. 41; see Grillmeier (1975) 311 and Kelly (1978) 285.

Inc. 7.

Thomson (1971) 154–158. Among the many passages in which Athanasius speaks of Christ's relation to his body in terms of “offering” and “sacrifice,” see Inc. 8, 9, 10, 16, 20, 21, 25; Or. Ar. 1:41, 2:7, 2:14, 2:69; On the Council of Nicaea 14; To Epictetus 4, 5, 6; To Adelphius 6.

AW I/I.II, 183.10–184.30.

2 SELECTIONS FROM ORATIONS AGAINST THE ARIANS

Or. Ar. 1:22, 1:37, 2:24.

See Kannengiesser (1983b) 24.

Opitz III/I, Urk. 4b, 8.2–3; see also Arius, Thalia, in Or. Ar. 1:5.

It would seem that in Arius's understanding, this proleptic bestowal was conferred upon the Son even in his pre-existent state. He explic itly rejects the notion that the Son “previously existed and was later begotten or reestablished as a Son” (Statement of Faith of Arius, AW III/I, Urk. 6, 13.1–2). Athanasius seems to acknowledge that a simple adoptionism was rejected by the early supporters of Arius in On the Council of Nicaea 6; cf. Williams (1987, 2nd edn.) 104–105. Williams entertains the possibility that the assertion of the Son's mutability could be a mere deduction of Athanasius's imposed on Arius's doctrine of the creatureliness of the Son, but then dismisses it because of “the attention Athanasius expends on the exegetical issues connected with this” (1987, 105). We may also note the testimony of Alexander of Alexandria along with the explicit anathematization of this teaching by both the Council of Antioch of 325 and the Council of Nicaea. For a positive evaluation of the doctrine of the Son's changeability in early Arianism, see Gregg and Groh (1981) esp. 13–42.

AW III/I, Urk. 14, 27.13.

AW III/II, Urk. 24.

See all of Gregg and Groh (1981).

See, for example, Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 45, Vinzent (1993) 110, from Alexander of Alexandria's letter to Alexander of Thessalonica.

This interpretation is closely aligned with the thesis of Lorenz, who considers Arian “Logos-theology” to be dependent on Origen's theology of the Incarnation; see Lorenz (1979) 211–224.

On First Principles I, 2, 10 (Butterworth (1973) 25–26).

Cf. Against Celsus VI:79, 150–151.

Cf. On First PrinciplesI, 2, 10; I, 6, 2; I, 8, 3.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 44, Vinzent (1993) 108.

This is a telling rhetorical question; Athanasius seems more concerned that “those who belong to the Church” be viscerally horrified at the impiety of Arian doctrine than that they should be capable of refuting them in argument. See Chapter 1, pp. 36–37.

Cf. Symbol of Nicaea (AW III/II, Urk. 24).

That God does not “progress” is an important part of Athanasius's Trinitarian theology; see, for example, Or. Ar. 1:17. There is a similar stress in Origen's doctrine of God; cf. On First Principles I, 2, 10.

Here, Athanasius is directing his attack against the teaching of Asterius, who could speak of the Son as “exact image” of the Father (Syntagmation, Fr. 10, Vinzent (1993)). It is aimed generally against those anti-Nicene “homoians” who were willing to confess that the Son is like the Father while ascribing to him changeability. The point would not hold against Arius, who reportedly asserted that Father, Son, and Spirit are wholly “unlike” (Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5). Athanasius's point is that to say that the Father is unchangeable while the Son is changeable makes it self-contradictory to maintain that the Son is like the Father.

This is a typical instance of Athanasius's technique of inserting Arian theology into Scriptural statements that speak of the correlation of Father and Son, in order to highlight, by jarring effect, the discordance of Arian theology with Scripture.

Asterius referred to the Son as “image,” which gives Athanasius another opportunity to make the point that it is self-contradictory to say that the changeable Son is the image of the unchangeable Father. Cf. “Creed of the Council of Antioch of 341,” in Athanasius, De Synodis 23).

On the significance of this term for Athanasius's theology, see Chapter 1, pp. 66– 74; Louth (1989).

For the notion that those who do not properly honor the divinity of the Logos become themselves irrational (alogoi) and prone to irrational thoughts, see Against the Greeks 9, 19, 34; Inc. 12; On the Council of Nicaea 2.

The Son is referred to as the “fruit” (karpos) of the Father in Against the Greeks 46.

It is not clear whether Athanasius has a particular event of Jesus's life in mind here, such as the Transfiguration. He could simply be making the point, which is typical with him, that the “works” of Christ are ample demonstration of his divinity and provide a counter-witness to those who would take him for a mere human being. Cf. Inc. 15, 30, 31, 54; Origen, On First Principles I, 2, 8.

Greek: hoi hagioi; in Athanasius, this term usually refers to the writers of the Scriptures.

According to Aristotelian teaching, an accident is that which does not exist in itself but in an underlying subject (ousia); see Categories 4, Ib25–27, and Topics I 9, 103b22–23. Aristotle lists as accidents quantity, quality, relation, location, time, position, state, action, and passion. Athanasius's reasoning is that if the Son's being “Word” and “Wisdom” were accidental to him and thus susceptible to variation, there is nothing to ensure that he will persist in being Word and Wisdom. This logic owes something to Origen, who argued that goodness is not stable in creatures because it is accidental to their natures (see, for example, On First Principles I, 2, 4; I, 2, 10; I, 5, 5). Of course, the Arians would counter that this capacity to persist is granted to him by God, as a grace.

Greek: echrise; lit., “christened.”

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 45, Vinzent (1993) 110.

This is a reference to Eusebius of Nicomedia; see Chapter 1, p. 10.

Here, Athanasius is constructing his own deductions in order to push Arian doctrine into a kind of adoptionism, quite ignoring the doctrine of a reward proleptically awarded to the Son in anticipation of his future merits. His larger point, however, still stands—namely that this conception makes the Son “gain” divine prerogatives as a consequence of his human career, a conception which he apparently considers to entail “logical” if not temporal adoptionism.

Paul of Samosata was bishop of Antioch (ca. 260–268), and was condemned by Antiochian synods in 264 and 268. While it is difficult to reconstruct with any assurance his genuine thought, it appears that he denied the pre-existence of Christ and was thus routinely represented as teaching that Christ was a mere man (psilos anthropos).

Athanasius often likens the “Arians” to the Jews. While this motif rightly bears an ill savor in the post-holocaust world, it should be noted that the taunts of Athanasius are part of a strategy of excluding the “Arians” from the boundaries of Christian identity. Typically, this strategy is worked out by projecting the “Arians” onto the scriptural landscape and aligning them with those who refuse to acknowledge the lordship of Christ in the evangelical accounts. Thus, they are identified not only with the Jews, but also with Pilate, Herod, etc. Likewise, they are aligned with previous groups of heretics who have been excluded from the communion of the Church, such as the Valentinians, the Manichees, and the Marcionites. For a critique of Athanasius's strategy of identifying his opponents with the Jews, see Brakke (2001).

Athanasius's opponents would agree that even if the Son himself is divine by grace, he is still the mediator of grace to others. But in that case, he asks, how was the grace of being “sons” of God granted through the mediation of the Son even before the Son himself attained to the grace of divinity? While it may still be contended that the grace of being Son was granted even prior to creation, through God's foreknowledge of his merits (see n. 4, above), Athanasius is concerned at this point with establishing at least that the Son's divinity was not consequent upon his human career, and thus not consequent upon the abasement to which the text of Philippians 2 refers.

Lit., “there is no sonship apart from the true Son.”

Once again, Athanasius is trying to show that the exegesis of his opponents suffers from self-contradiction. On Asterius's doctrine of the likeness between Father and Son, see nn. 17 and 19 above. In his exposition of the proceeding of the Nicene Council (On the Council of Nicaea 20), Athanasius portrays Eusebius and his supporters as accepting the formula that the Son is “like the Father in all things.”

Greek: kata patrikēn idiotēta.

Reading ton genomenon anthrōpon (with OSBc3Ac), rather than merely ton genomenon. Cf. AW I/I, 152.

Cf. Inc. 6, 13. Athanasius's use of this theme seems to have a distinctly Irenaean flavor; see Irenaeus, Against the Heresies III, 23, 1; IV, 20, 7.

Greek: tous sussōmous autou; see Chapter 1, p. 61, and accompanying note.

That the victory wrought by the Word's Incarnation and death on the cross is manifest in the conversion of the nations to Christ, the decline of idolatry, and the spreading of the knowledge of God is an important theme in Athanasius's earlier treatise, Against the Greeks—On the Incarnation. See Against the Greeks 1; Inc. 1, 30, 31, 45, 46, 47, 52, 55. A similar conception is found in Origen, On First Principles IV, 1, 1; IV, 1, 5.

It is striking that for Athanasius, the very fact that Jesus is worshipped is a sign of his divinity. A parallel argument is found in Inc., where the Church 's faith in him is considered to be a manifestation of Christ's active divinity. See Inc. 53.

In these Orations, Athanasius typically refers to the “kinship” (sungeneia) that human beings have with Christ's body. See Or. Ar. 2:63, 2:69, 3:53.

Greek: tēn dianoian…ekklēsiastikēn; cf. Against the Greeks 6, 7, 33; On the Council of Nicaea 3.

Greek: bebaia; see Chapter 1, pp. 61–63.

See Or. Ar. 3:11–13.

Lit., “according to his own paternal (patrikēn) divinity and perfection.”

This text from the psalm is applied to Christ in Heb 1:8–9. For Origen's treatment of this text with reference to the soul of Christ, see On First Principles II, 6, 4. Cf. Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 45, Vinzent (1993); on the authenticity of this fragment, see Vinzent (1993) 253–255.

Greek: metochous; in the original context of the psalm, the term refers to the “fellow kings” over whom the Israelite king stands pre-eminent. The term metochos means “partner,” and it also means “partaker,” one who “participates in” (metechein). It therefore lends itself readily to being interpreted in light of the framework of “participation.” For Athanasius, all creatures participate in God, while the Son, as God, is participated by creatures. On one occasion, Athanasius concedes that one might be able to speak of the Son as participating the Father, but this is an altogether unique case of “whole participation”; see Or. Ar. 1:15–16. On Athanasius's doctrine of participation, see Bernard (1952) 32–38; Meijering (1974) 62–64; Kolp (1979); Anatolios (1998) 50–52, 104–109, 137–138.

Athanasius's treatment of the Son's Incarnate reception of the Spirit on our behalf is close to that of Irenaeus: cf. Against the Heresies III, 9, 3; III, 17, 1–2; III, 18, 3; Demonstration of the Apostolic Faith 6. See also Roldanus (1968) 236–252; Anatolios (2001) 474–475.

Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea, commenting on the same text: “the Anointer, who is the Supreme God, is far superior to the Anointed, who is God in a different sense” (Demonstration of the Gospel IV, 15; PG 22:305A).

For Athanasius, “Image” (eikōn) is one of the names of the Son. Consequently, he speaks of humanity not in terms of being God's image, but of being “kat’ eikona— according to the image.” See Bernard (1952) 21–24; Roldanus (1968) 38–65. The same usage is found in Origen; cf. Commentary on John 1:105.

Greek: metochos; see above, n. 47.

Greek: tēn patrikēn basileian—i.e. the Son's kingdom is that of the Father.

See Chapter 1, pp. 61–63; cf. Or. Ar. 3:12–13.

Asterius, Syntagmation,Fr. 45, Vinzent (1993) 110, 253–255.

Athanasius's stress on the instability of created beings in goodness as something rectified by the humanization of the Word is derived from Origen; see, for example, On First Principles I, 2, 4: “Or again, since it was to happen that some of those who were created would prove unable, in consequence of the good being within them as an accident and not by nature, that is, not essentially, to remain firm and steadfast and to abide for ever in the just and temperate use of their original blessings, but would turn and change and fall away from their first state, the Word and Wisdom of God became the Way” (Butterworth (1973) 17).

Hanson (1988) 434.

Hanson (1988) 825.

Commentary on John 1:111, 118.

It is also true, however, that there was a much thinner stream of tradition that identified “Wisdom” with the Spirit, rather than with Christ; thus Irenaeus, Against the Heresies IV, 20, 3, and even in the fourth century, Gregory of Elvira, On the Orthodox Faith 27–29.

See Chapter 1, pp. 80–82.

Arius held that God was not eternally Father (Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5), but Asterius maintained that while the Son is not eternal, God is always Father by virtue of his generative capacity (Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 14, Vinzent (1993), in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (De Synodis) 19).

In the background here is Origen's doctrine that if God is eternally almighty, there must always be a creation over which God is sovereign (On First Principles I, 2, 10). Athanasius transposes this line of reasoning to argue that if God is Creator, he must be eternally in possession of his creative agency, which is biblically identified as the Son/Word/Wisdom. The same argument is made in Or. Ar. 1:26, 29On the Origenian background to this argument, see Anatolios (1999).

Cf. Or. Ar. 3:63. Origen also speaks of the generation of the Son from the Father as “an act of his will proceeding from the mind” (On First Principles I, 2, 6; I, 2, 9; IV, 4, 1). Even more directly, Clement of Alexandria speaks of the Word as “the Father's will” (thelēma) in his Exhoration 12; see also Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 128.

Greek: poiēsanti; in this context, usually translated as “appointed.” The text to which Athanasius refers speaks of Jesus as “the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to the one who appointed (poiēsanti) him.”

Given the fact that what is at issue is precisely whether the words of Scripture designate the essence of the Word to be that of a creature, Athanasius seems to be quite begging the question here by asserting that the words of Scripture themselves have to be interpreted consistently with the essence to which they apply. But his point, ultimately, is that the essence of the Word cannot be determined by the single use of a particular term but in light of the overall patterns of terminology and plot throughout the Scriptures. Thus, he will go on to argue that the overall scriptural designation of the Word differentiates him from creatures and posits a strict correlativity of the Father and the Word/Wisdom/Son.

Greek: tōn akerainōn; see Kannengiesser (1983b) 24.

Cf. Or. Ar. 1:22.

Greek: autexousios; cf. Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5 (= Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 43, Vinzent (1993)).

Cf. Letter of Arius and his Party to Alexander of Alexandria, AW III, Urk. 6.

Cf. Confession of Faith of Arius and his Supporters to Alexander of Alexandria, AW III, Urk. 6; the Nicene confession repudiates this teaching by insisting that the Son is “begotten not made” (AW III, Urk. 24).

The diversity among creatures is an important concern for Origen; cf. On First Principles II, 1, 1–4 and II, 9, 5–8, although Origen's universe is decidedly more hierarchical than that of Athanasius. The latter typically makes the point that all creation is equal with respect to God and equally in need of divine help; cf. Against the Greeks 35–44.

On creation's order, harmony, and manifest lack of self-sufficiency as indications of the Creator, see Against the Greeks 27, 28, 35–44.

The sense of this passage is admittedly obscure. A large part of the difficulty is that Athanasius's very point is to display the non-sense and absurdity of the notion of a self-creating creature. This notion is the result of the reductio ad absurdum that he has conceived by combining (1) the “Arian” acknowledgment of the Son as Creator; (2) the “Arian” doctrine that the Son is himself created; and (3) the Scriptural notion that whatever the Father makes, the Son also makes (cf. Jn 10:37– 38, 14:10). The result is a self-creating Son and, by general inference, the conception of creatures that create themselves and thus, instead of being brought into being from nothing by God's word, are already in existence such as to be able to hear the very word that is supposed to create them! That God's creating word would thus be redundant for the creation of these already existent beings is precisely Athanasius's point!

Valentinus, Basilides, and Marcion were all attacked by Irenaeus for holding the doctrine that this world was not created by the true God (cf. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies II, 2, 1–4; II, 3, 1). Athanasius reproduces some of Irenaeus's arguments against this conception; see Anatolios (2001) 470–471. For Athanasius, the Arians imitate the teachings of Valentinus, Marcion, and Basilides in their asserting that the Creator-Word is not fully divine by nature. Hence, in their view too, the creator of this world is not “the true God.” Athanasius likens his opponents to Valentinus also in Or. Ar. 2:70. On the other hand, it seems that the opponents of Alexander and Nicene theology similarly accused Nicene theologians of affinity with Valentinus and Marcion. From that perspective, the reasoning was that the Nicene theologians’ defense of the full divinity of the Son posited two Unbegottens and thus two Gods. See Letter of Arius to Alexander of Alexandria, Urk. 6, and the defensive remarks of Athanasius in On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 52.

Cf. Inc. 2–3.

The designation of the work of the Word as “assistance” (hypourgein) and his identification as subordinate assistant (hypourgos) is attributed by Athanasius to the teaching of Asterius; see below, Or. Ar. 2:28 (Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 26, Vinzent (1993)) and On the Council of Nicaea 7 (Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 28, Vinzent (1993)). It is a designation that is also employed by Eusebius of Caesarea: see Hist. Eccl. I, 2, 2–3; Dem. Ev. IV, 10, 16; V, 5, 3. See, further, Vinzent (1993) 206–207.

Greek: dia to idion tēs ousias kai tēn kata panta homoiotēta tou hiou pros ton patera; the depiction of the Son's relationship to the Father as “complete likeness” was proposed at the Council of Nicaea, according to Athanasius's account in On the Council of Nicaea 20.

Arius taught that the Son does not fully know the Father or even his own essence; see Athanasius's version of the Thalia, in On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15. Asterius considerably modified the apophatic tone of Arius's theology, as well as Arius's emphasis on the “unlikeness” between Father and Son; see Vinzent (1993) 68–69.

Letter of Arius to Alexander of Alexandria, Urk. 6; Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 35, Vinzent (1993).

See Heb 1:4–14.

Athanasius is countering the doctrine of Asterius, Syntagmation, Frs. 26, 28, Vinzent (1993), in which the Word “alone” is directly created by God and then becomes a mediatorial “assistant” of God's creative activity. That God is not so weak as to need “assistance” for the work of creating is a motif which Athanasius borrows from Irenaeus: cf. Against the Heresies IV, 7, 4; V, 4, 2. Athanasius will make the same point in On the Council of Nicaea 7 and On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 52. See Anatolios (2001) 471.

See Encyclical Letter of Alexander of Alexandria and his Clergy, AW III/I, Urk. 4b; Athanasius's ascription of such teaching to Asterius (Syntagmation, Fr. 26, 28, Vinzent (1993)) appears to be authentic (see Vinzent (1993) 202–210). Cf. Eusebius of Caesarea; see also Hist. Eccl. I, 2, 2–3; Dem. Ev. IV, 10; V, 5.

The same point is made by Irenaeus, Against the Heresies II, 2, 1, and repeated by Athanasius in On the Council of Nicaea 7.

That is, the creative agency itself (demiourgia) originates in the Father, while the Son applies this creative agency to the task of making creatures. This conception is consistent with the notion of the Son as instrument of God's creative activity and a subordinate “assistant” to the Father. Cf. Eunomius, Apology 20: “He who creates by his own power is entirely different from him who does so at the Father's command and acknowledges that he can do nothing of his own accord” (ET: Vaggione (1987) 61).

A similar line of reasoning is employed by Irenaeus against the Valentinians (cf. Against the Heresies II, 1, 3–4) as well as by Methodius of Olympus, in defense of the belief that God alone is Creator: On Free Will 5.

Of course, the Arians came to no such conclusion. Athanasius is not actually arguing that they did, but rather that their logic (the doctrine in question is that of Asterius) leads to an infinite regress which makes the given fact of creation a logical impossibility.

Vinzent (1993, 260) considers this passage to originate from the writings of Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 47.

Insisting on the “oneness” of the Word undercuts Arius's emphasis on “oneness” as the primary designation of divinity; cf. Thalia, in On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15. In distinction to Arius's teaching, Asterius placed less emphasis on the “oneness” of divine being; for him, the primary designation of divinity was “Unbegotten/Unoriginated”: see Vinzent (1993) 64–67.

Vinzent (1993, 200) considers this quotation to originate in Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 24.

Cf. Against the Greeks 27–28.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 34, Vinzent (1993) 222–224.

A pejorative reference to Asterius's sacrificing to the pagan gods in order to escape punishment during the Diocletian persecution.

Origen also contrasts what pertains to the Word by nature and is therefore stable, and what pertains to creatures not by nature but accidentally and is therefore unstable and liable to loss: see On First Principles I, 2, 4; I, 2, 10; I, 5, 5; I, 6, 2; I, 8, 3.

The quotation is quite out of context. The verse in the Septuagint runs: “I am full {i.e. ‘have had enough’} of whole-burnt rams and the fat of sheep; I do not desire the blood of bulls and goats.” That God has “no need of anyone” is emphasized also in Against the Greeks 28; there is a similar stress in Irenaeus (cf. Against the Heresies I, 22, 1; II, 1, 5; IV, 14, 1; IV, 20, 1).

A certain subordinationism, whereby women are equally in the image of God and yet hierarchically ordered to the authority of men, is typical of the Fathers of the early Church. Often, such a view draws on 1 Cor 11:7–9: see, for example, Ambrose, On Paradise IV, 24; Augustine, Literal Commentary on Genesis XI:42; John Chrysostom, Discourse 2 on Genesis 2. See, further, Clark (1983) 27–76.

In attempting to deconstruct the logic of his opponents from within, Athanasius seems to lapse momentarily into a position that he explicitly rejects, i.e. that the Son is the effect of the Father's will. However, Athanasius is not here directly articulating his own position but working from the Arian position toward his own by showing that its self-contradictions lead one toward what he considers to be the correct view. His own position is more directly articulated in the following chapter, where he says that the Word is himself the will of the Father.

Athanasius is employing the imagery of Irenaeus, who refers to the Son and Spirit as God's “two hands”: Against the Heresies IV, Pref., 1; IV, 20, 1. The image is based on scriptural texts (e.g. Job 10:8, Ps 119:73). See also, below, Or. Ar. 71; 0n the Council of Nicaea 7.

See above, 2:2 and n. 96.

Greek: hagioi, writers of Scripture.

The tactic of recasting Arius's “there was once when the Son was not” into biblical linguistic patterns was one to which Athanasius constantly returned. The substance of his reasoning is already present in Origen, On First Principles IV, 4, 1; cf. Letter of Alexander of Alexandria, AW III/I, Urk. 14, 23–24.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 76, Vinzent (1993).

On the akribeia of Scripture and the significance of scriptural images (paradeigmata), see Chapter 1, pp. 78–80; Pelikan (1962).

Arius's concern that “homoousios” implies division and partition of the Godhead is evident in his Letter of Arius to Alexander of Alexandria (Opitz, AW III/I, Urk. 6).

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 75, Vinzent (1993) 140, 321–323.

Athanasius's statement that the Logos is not prophorikos amounts to a repudiation of an important aspect of the theology of some of the Greek apologists of the second century, particularly Theophilus (To Autolycus 22). See also Tatian (Address to the Greeks 5) and Athenagoras (A Plea for the Christians 10). Cf. Against the Greeks 40, where Athanasius repudiates the identification of the Word as Logos spermatikos.

A similar apophaticism as to the generation of the Son is expressed in the Letter of Alexander of Alexandria, Urk. 14.

See n. 102, above.

Origen typically approached the doctrine of Christ by investigating the names or conceptions, epinoiai, applied to Christ in the Scriptures (cf. On First Principles I, 2, 1ff. and Commentary on John 1, 31, 221ff.). Origen divides these epinoiai into two sets, those that apply to the Son in himself and those that apply to the Son in relation to creation (Commentary on John 2, 18, 128). Arius collapsed this distinction and tended to understand all the epinoiai of the Son as ways of conceiving the Son's relation to creation. In particular, the Son is Word and Wisdom not in himself and not as such but only improperly speaking and due to his graced participation in the essential Word and Wisdom which is integral to the divine essence and because of his agency in manifesting the divine Word and Wisdom to creation. See Arius, Thalia (=De Synodis 15), where he speaks of the Son as “conceived (epinoieitai) according to countless conceptions (epinoiais)— spirit, power, wisdom, God's glory, truth and image”—and Encyclical Letter of Alexander of Alexandria, where Arius is quoted as saying that the Son is “neither like (homoios) the Father in being, nor is he the Father's true Word by nature, nor his true Wisdom…but is improperly (katachrēstikōs) called Word and Wisdom since he came into being by the proper Word of God and the Wisdom which is in God” (AW III/I, Urk. 4b, 7.21–8.2); see also Or. Ar. 1:9 and Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya 12. On Origen's doctrine of epinoiai, see Crouzel (1989) 188–192. For a comparison of Arius and Origen on the epionoiai of Christ, see Lorenz (1979) 81– 85. The teaching that the Son was not strictly speaking the true Word and Wisdom of God was also adopted by Asterius, who seems to be Athanasius's immediate source here; cf. Syntagmation, Fr. 64, 69, Vinzent (1993) (=Or. Ar. 2:37), and Syntagmation, Fr. 66, Vinzent (1993) (=De Synodis 18); see also Vinzent (1993) 310–312. On the history of the concept of epioniai, see Orbe (1955).

Cf. Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5.

Ibid.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 64, Vinzent (1993).

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 66, Vinzent (1993).

The critical text of AW I/I.II, 214.30, here reads aidion (eternal), but it seems more likely that this is another instance where Athanasius is presenting opposing conceptions with reference to his recurrent motif that the Son is idion tēs ousias (“proper to the being”) of the Father. The reading of idion is attested in the manuscript tradition: OSBclAc.

=Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 72, Vinzent (1993); cf. Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, De Synodis 15. The Creed of the synod of Antioch of 325 insisted that “the Scriptures call him a begotten son in a proper and true sense (kyriōs kai alethōs)” (Opitz, Urk. 18, 39).

Here, Athanasius asserts his own doctrine of the distinction between the Father and the Son. As is customary with him, he succeeds in turning the table on the Arian accusation that the doctrine of the coeternal and co-equal subsistence of the Son leads to a positing of “two Unbegottens.” He retorts that their own admission of “an unbegotten Wisdom” is vulnerable to the same accusation, which they admittedly deflect by asserting that this Wisdom is simply an attribute of “the Father himself.” But at this point, Athanasius uses the occasion to state that Wisdom coexists with the Father and is thus distinct. Such a statement is at variance with the modalistic conception of his supporter, Marcellus of Ancyra.

For similar reasoning employed by Athanasius in likening his Arian opponents to the Manichees, see his Letter to the Bishops of Egypt 16. While this strategy is clearly part of a rhetorical and polemical campaign to associate his opponents with recognized heretics, Athanasius does make an attempt to provide some intelligible substance for the accusation. His rationale amounts to the argument that what the Arians and the Manichees have in common is the implied notion of a Deus absconditus, or “hidden God.” The Manichees hold that the true God is not the God present and active in creation, while the Arians hold that the true Word and Wisdom is other than the Word and Wisdom which is active in creation, and which is identified by the Scriptures with Jesus Christ. On Athanasius's alignment of the Arians with other recognized heresies, see Lyman (1993b). Athanasius's criticism of a God “without witnesses” echoes that of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies II, 9, 1– 2; II, 10, 1.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 32, Vinzent (1993).

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 33, Vinzent (1993).

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 67, Vinzent (1993) (in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5). Athanasius's contention that the doctrine of his opponents is self-contradictory can be easily deflected by noting that they used such terms as “Wisdom,” “Power,” and “Word” equivocally, sometimes referring to an uncreated attribute of the divine essence while at other times referring to the created participation in these attributes, which is exemplified by the Son. The foundation of Athanasius's logic is precisely that such equivocation is scripturally unwarranted and results in the “Manichean” notion of a true God behind the God manifested by Scripture and creation.

On Athanasius's appeal to baptismal practice, see Williams (1993). As Williams points out, non-Nicene theologians also appealed to baptismal practice and the formula of Mt 28:19, using it to substantiate a pluralist theology in which each of the hypostases is truly (alethōs) distinct. Cf. Second Creed of Antiochene Synod of 341, in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 23.

See n. 31, above

Athanasius's assertion of the necessary consistency between teaching, faith, and baptismal initiation is taken up by Basil of Caesarea, in his treatise On the Holy Spirit 68.

On the Manichees and Paul of Samosata, see, respectively, nn. 116 and 30, above. The Phrygians were an ancient cult, with Eastern roots but later transported to Rome, dedicated to the worship of Cybele, “Mother of the Gods,” and her young consort, Attis. See Vermaseren(1977).

The reference to “human patronage” might be an allusion to Eusebius of Nicomedia and his considerable influence at the imperial court.

The invalidity of Arian baptism is again asserted in Letters to Serapion 1:29–30.

Thus, the question of identifying the subject of the verse (the Word as God and not a creature) is determined by reference to the whole range of scriptural language before Athanasius takes up the disputed verse. Once “the person” (to prosopon) is identified, the sense will be interpreted accordingly.

Paroimiai means both “proverbs” and “parables.” That the fact that this is a “proverb” necessitates that it be treated as a parable, paroimiōdiōs—i.e. with a view to a hidden meaning—is also asserted by Marcellus of Ancyra, Fr. 29, Vinzent (1997) 30.

Of course, this stratagem of accommodating the sense of the passage to the “person” (prosopon) completely begs the question by supplanting the apparent description of the “person” rendered by the passage (as created) with that which is presumed to belong to the person, quite apart from the passage in question. The implied logic of Athanasius's overall strategy is that “the person” of Wisdom cannot be delineated merely from this one passage, but from the whole plot and “scope” (skopos) of the scriptural designation of the Son. The identification of the person of the Son is thus to be construed both from the overall plot with its Christological center of “a double account of the Savior” and from the larger patterns of linguistic correlations by which the various designations of the Son are brought together.

The same interpretation is given by Marcellus of Ancyra (e.g. Frs. 26, 28, Vinzent (1997) 30), and later taken up by Hilary of Poitiers (On the Trinity XII:44–50) and Gregory of Nazianzus (Theological Oration 30:2). It was rejected by Eusebius of Caesarea (Ecclesiastical Theology I, 10; III, 2).

The substance of Athanasius's argument is that the predication of “created” does not in itself define the being of the subject of the statement, which would be the case if the persona of Wisdom had simply said, “I am a creature.” Rather, such a predication can merely state an event pertaining to the subject of the statement, thus leaving open the possibility that the subject of that statement transcends that event. Concretely, of course, Athanasius is reading the text in the framework of his belief that the human “creation” of the Incarnate Word is an event that pertains to the subject of the Word but does not define the Word's being and nature. He is arguing that the text as it stands does not preclude such a reading. As negative support for his point, he goes on to cite passages in which creatures are simply so called, which is not the case in this text. The argument that the word “created” does not always designate a creature seems to be adopted by Athanasius from Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical Theology III, 2, 22ff. See Meijering (1974) 100.

The same series of texts is quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea to make the same point: cf. Ecclesiastical Theology III, 2, 11–12; see also Meijering (1974).

Athanasius is following the customary interpretation whereby the “two peoples” are Jews and Gentiles.

A modern reader may well respond with the popular wisdom that in fact each thing is unique (i.e. “no two snowflakes are the same”), but Athanasius's point is not that single instances of created beings do not each have unique features—with respect to this point, he concedes readily that every created being is different and so all are equally different. His point remains that nevertheless there is no created being who is completely unique, most principally because every creature has in common with every other creature the original feature of being created.

Athanasius's argument is that if one rejects the interpretation that Wisdom's saying “He created me” refers to the Incarnation, the adjoining phrase “for the works” must be interpreted to mean that the creation of Wisdom is posterior (whether chronologically or logically) to creation (“the works”). The latter alternative makes the Word to be inferior to creation.

On “this rhetoric of reversal” by which the Incarnation changes the Father's relationship to the Son from “Father” to “Lord” and humanity's relationship to the Father from “Lord” to the “Father,” see Anatolios (1998) 133–138. It is adopted by Gregory of Nazianzus, Theological Oration 30:8.

Cf. Inc. 1, 7.

The same line of reasoning is followed later by Gregory of Nazianzus in his explication of this passage; cf. Theological Oration 30:2.

On the salvific efficacy of Christ's death, see Inc., inter alia, 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 20, 25, 31. See also Chapter 1, pp. 56–61.

A similar reasoning is found in Inc. 44; see also below, 2:68.

Greek: diastēmatikēn archēn tou einai echei. The contrast between the lack of distance or interval (diastēma) between Father and Son and creation's beginning as associated with such an “interval” is found in Letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Thessalonica, AW III/I, Urk. 14, 22.16. It is also taken up and elaborately developed by Gregory of Nyssa; see, for example, Against Eunomius I: 25–26.

Greek: en to ginesthai metreitai. This is to say that creatures do not possess being entirely and simultaneously but their being is, as it were, “meted out”; becoming (ginesthai) is this “rationing out” of being.

Both Arius (Thalia, in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15 and Epistle to Alexander, Urk. 6; Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, Urk. 1) and Asterius (Syntagmation, Fr. 66, Vinzent (1993)) reserved the title of anarchos (“without beginning”) to the Unbegotten God. On the other hand, Alexander of Alexandria had spoken of the generation of the Son as anarchon; Urk. 14, 28. That the Son is anarchos is denied by Eusebius of Caesarea, for whom such a designation would conjure up the conception of “two Unbegottens”; see Ecclesiastical Theology II, 6.

In the original context, these passages are from the “Song of Moses” in the book of Deuteronomy and refer to the people of Israel as “God's children,” albeit, because of their disobedience, as “God's degenerate children.” See Deut 32:5ff.

This is a preferable reading to the critical text of AW, which leaves out mē, thus reading: “If the Word was a creature by nature and being and there was a difference…” The latter reading makes little sense on its own and less so considering that Athanasius is countering precisely the position that the categories of creature and offspring are indifferent; the alternative manuscript tradition represented here is found in Euthymius Zigabenus, Panoplia dogmatica (see AW III/I, 237).

cf. Or. Ar. 2:48.

Accepting the addition of “of God” (in 76cZig) omitted in the critical edition of AW III/I, 238.

In applying the title of “firstborn” to the Incarnation, Athanasius is countering the doctrine of Asterius who, according to Marcellus of Ancyra, took “firstborn” as equivalent to “only-begotten,” both taken as signifying the origin of the Son. See AW III/I, 238, n. 61:13; cf. Marcellus of Ancyra, Fr. 10, Vinzent (1997) 12–13.

This is to contradict the doctrine of Arius and Asterius on the two Words and Wisdoms of God: see Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5; Asterius, Syntagmation, Frs. 33, 62, 64, 65, 70, Vinzent (1993).

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 25, Vinzent (1993) 94, 201–202.

Athanasius is now dealing with a different text, Rom 8:29, which he takes to be a clear reference to the Incarnation. He uses this text as a demonstration of his logical-linguistic point that to be first “of all” is to be excluded from the category of this “all.” Thus, Rom 8:29 speaks of Christ as “the firstborn among many brothers” in order to include Jesus Christ within the category of brothers.

Asterius spoke of the Son as mediating the unmitigated transcendence of the Father (Syntagmation, Fr. 26, Vinzent (1993), in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 2:24). Athanasius here relocates this mediation away from the nature of the Son and ascribes it to the condescension of the Son. On the significance of the category of “condescension” for Athanasius's presentation of Christ, see Chapter 1, pp. 49–56ff.

Cf. 1 Cor 15:47.

cf. Inc. 6; Irenaeus, Against the Heresies III, 23, 1.

On the inappropriateness of an unredeemed humanity, see Inc. 6; on Christ's redemption as repayment of “debt” (opheilē, opheilēma) on our behalf, see Inc. 9, 20.

Vinzent conjectures this to be a reference to Asterius; cf. Syntagmation, Fr. 37, Vinzent (1993) 225–227.

This objection is treated in a similar manner in Inc. 44.

On the close parallels between this section and Irenaeus, Against the Heresies III, 18, 7, see Anatolios (2001) 472–473

On the Incarnation as rendering salvation secure (bebaia), see Chapter l, pp. 61–66.

On the Word as instrument of God's creative activity, see Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5, and Asterius, Frs. 26–30, Vinzent (1993).

Greek: meta paratērēseos akribous; cf. Or. Ar. 2:33, 2:51; see also Chapter 1, p. 79

The preposition eis can denote purpose as in the English “for”, or spatial movement as in the English “into”; Athanasius will play on this equivocality.

On the Word as “hand” of God, see n. 97, above.

Cf. Dan 3:58–90.

At this point, Athanasius is seeking to interpret what the Scriptures say about Christ as Wisdom in relation to the designation of Christ as “Son.” His point will be that the designation of Christ as “Son” and “Word” is predicated of him absolutely, while the “creation” of Wisdom in Prov 8:22 is qualified by its being said to be “as a beginning of the ways” and “established as a foundation” (Prov 8: 23). Because some of the primary scriptural names for the Word/Son/Wisdom are applied to him absolutely and not merely with a view to creation, his person as such cannot be conceived merely as associated with the work of creation.

In Athanasius, the designation of God as “good and lover of humanity” (agathos kai philanthropos) typically introduces an account of how God overcomes human weakness in order to ensure humanity's communion with him: see Against the Greeks 35, 41; cf. Inc. 15.

Note the contrast here between remaining mortal and remaining immortal, in close parallel to Inc. 3. See also Chapter 1, pp. 61–66.

The motif of God's goodness as compensating for our weakness recalls a prominent motif in Against the Greeks—On the Incarnation: see Against the Greeks 2, 35, 41; Inc. 2, 7, 11. See also Anatolios (1998) 32–35; Pettersen (1998).

This analogy is reminiscent of Plotinus, Enneads, I, 6, 3, where the intelligible realm is compared to the bodily realm through recourse to the analogy of an architect's plan in relation to the material building. More proximately, it echoes Origen, Commentary on John 1:114: “For I think that just as a house and a ship are built or devised according to the plans of the architect, the house and the ship having as their beginning the plans and thoughts in the craftsman, so all things have come to be according to the thoughts of what will be, which were prefigured by God in wisdom, ‘For he made all things in wisdom’” (Heine, 57).

Presuming the principle of intertextuality, Athanasius assumes that the referent of the passage must be considered in terms of the other ways in which it is referred to in the rest of the Scriptures. Wisdom is elsewhere described as creator; therefore its being said to be “created” raises the question: how can the creator be created? He has already provided the Christological answer in terms of the skopos of Scripture.

Athanasius here conceives the incarnation as the act whereby uncreated Wisdom assumes the created wisdom which is its copy (typos) and which is constituted by participation in uncreated Wisdom.

See n. 50, above.

On the universe as a harmonious body ordered to unity through the active presence of the Word, see Against the Greeks 35–40, 43, 44. The conception of the harmony of the universe as indicative of divine agency is commonplace in Hellenistic philosophy (cf. Plato, Laws X 886A and Timaeus 30A), and especially the Stoics (e.g. Pseudo-Aristotle, On the World 399a 1–14), as well as in earlier Christian literature (e.g. Letter of Clement to the Church of Corinth 20).

In Athanasius's Greek, the personal pronoun switches from feminine when the subject is Wisdom (sophia) to masculine when the subject is the Word (Logos) or the human being (anthropos) which the Word became.

Cf. Mt 11:27, Lk 10:22, Jn 10:15, Jn 14:7.

3 ON THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA (DE DECRETIS)

Cf. Schwartz (1959) 85; Opitz, AW II/I, De Decretis 2.15; Quasten (1960) 61; Altaner and Stuiber (1966) 271; Tetz, TRE 339; Young (1983) 76; Barnes (1993) 198–199- The latter dates the work at 352–353, still accepting the evidentiary value of this accusation by Athanasius: “Schwarz was certainly correct in holding that the fact that Athanasius writes as if violence were threatening but had not yet been employed excludes a date after he was dispossessed of his see in February, 356” (199).

For this view, see, especially, Brennecke (1984) 11, n. 41; Abramowski (1982) 259, n. 71; Heil (1999) 22–35.

There is of course also the “argument from silence” that Athanasius does not actually mention the so-called “Blasphemy of Sirmium” in this treatise and, moreover, that he fails to treat the scriptural proof-texts alluded to in that creed (i.e. Jn 14:28, “The Father is greater than I,” and 1 Cor 15:28, “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him”). Rather, he seems for the most part to be focused on refuting the teachings of Asterius. Furthermore, the assertion that the dissatisfaction with Nicene non-scriptural ousia-language only comes into view at 357 is radically undercut by noting that the issue is already very much evident in Athanasius's Or. Ar. 1:30ff.

Cf. the inflamed rhetoric of his encyclical To the Bishops of Egypt and Libya 22, 23.

This is a reference to Eusebius of Nicomedia, an early supporter of Arius and a leader of the anti-Nicene party in the East; see Chapter 1. The identity of Athanasius's addressee is not known, though Athanasius's language suggests that it is a bishop. By way of mere conjecture, it has been suggested that it is Pope Liberius (Barnes (1993) 199).

This is a fairly typical instance of Athanasius's attempt to drive home the point that the Arians’ refusal to acknowledge the full divinity of Christ renders them not Christians but “contemporary Jews.” See Or. Ar. n. 31.

Cf. Mt 11:5, Jn 2, Mt 14:13–21.

Prov 18:1: “A man seeks a pretext, when he wishes to separate himself from friends.”

The accusation that “in a little while they will turn to outrage (eis hubreis)” has often been taken as an indication that this treatise was composed at a time of relative calm threatened by the anticipation of imminent persecution of the pro- Nicenes. See n. 1, above.

That the absence of right belief in the Logos leads to irrationality is an important motif in Athanasius: cf. Against the Greeks 9, 19, 34; Inc. 12; Or. Ar. 1:35.

As he goes on to say, Athanasius appended this letter penned by Eusebius of Caesarea to his treatise; see AW II/I, 28–31. The reference to Eusebius's having “denied the day before” could be an allusion to the Council of Antioch of 325, which took place shortly before that of Nicaea, and whose anti-Arian statement of faith was rejected by Eusebius; see Hanson (1988) 146–151.

“We considered that the anathema proclaimed by them at the end of the [confession of) faith was harmless, since it forbade the use of unscriptural words, which are the cause of almost all the confusion and disorder of the church. Therefore, since no divinely inspired Scripture had used the words, ‘out of non-being’ and ‘once he was not’ and the rest that follow, it did not seem fitting to use or teach them” (AW II/I (=Bd. II, Lief. 1), 30.41–31.4).

Acacius of Caesarea, one of the main targets of Athanasius's polemic in this letter, was a leader of the anti-Nicene “homoian” party. He was the successor to Eusebius as bishop of Caesarea and a proponent of his predecessor's subordinationist theology. See Hanson (1988) 579–583. As he seems to imply here, Athanasius typically depicts Acacius as an opportunist who is motivated by the desire to curry favor with the emperor Constantius. Cf. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 39.

The reference again is to Eusebius of Caesarea; see n. 12, above.

Cf. Shephard of Hermes 9:9.

The designation of “saints” (hoi hagioi) refers to the scriptural writers. On the harmony and mutual “agreement” of Scriptures, see also Athanasius's Letter to Marcellinus 9.

Cf. Or. Ar. 1:1.

By subsuming all anti-Nicenes under the category of “Arian,” Athanasius can accuse them of inconsistency and “reversal.” In this case, he is exploiting the discrepancy between the present “Eusebian party” which is rejecting Nicene ousialanguage and the position of Eusebius of Caesarea who (albeit reluctantly) accepted Nicene terminology.

There is no record of this letter, unless Athanasius is here referring to the earlier Or. Ar.

The Arian doctrine represented here seems to be that of Arius himself; cf. Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5, and On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15. Cf. Athanasius's statement of Arius's views in his Letter to the Bishops of Egypt and Libya 12.

See Or. Ar. 1:35–51.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 29, Vinzent (1993) 96.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 28, Vinzent (1993). This also seems to have been the view of Eusebius of Caesarea: cf. Hist. Eccl. I, 2, 2–3; Dem. Ev. IV, 10, 16; V, 5, 3. Athanasius's response to this doctrine is a close paraphrase of his previous treatment of it in Or. Ar. 2:25ff.

On the Word as the “hand” of God, see Or. Ar. 2:31, 2:71. The terminology is distinctly Irenaean: see Against the Heresies IV, Pref.; IV, 20, 1.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 27, Vinzent (1993).

On Asterius, see Chapter 1, pp. 18–19

The following is a close paraphrase of Or. Ar. 2:26. That the Son is “mediator” was a doctrine taught by Alexander of Alexandria (cf. Urk. 14, 44), Athanasius's predecessor, though without any hint of Asterius's conception of the Son as “shielding” creation from divine immediacy.

Reading (following the manuscript tradition of B (Basiliensis gr. A III 4)) rather than , as given in AW II/I, 8.4.

Athanasius's argument runs as follows: The “Arians” associate the coming into being of the Son with the function of mediating God's creative activity to creatures. But in positing the Son as a creature who does not require such mediation activity, they thereby contradict their own premise of the necessity for such mediation; and since such mediation is associated with the very being of the Son, his being would be “superfluous”!

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 31, Vinzent (1993) 98.

The logical-linguistic argument that “greater” and “lesser” are qualifications that are not applicable to different natures is also made by Irenaeus, Against the Heresies IV, 9, 2.

On Paul of Samosata, see Ch 2, note 30.

The fear that the conception of the Son as generated from the divine essence implies the attribution of passibility to God and the partitioning of the divine essence is a constant concern of anti-Nicene theology, beginning with Arius himself: cf. his Letter to Alexander of Alexandria (Urk. 6); Or. Ar. 2:34.

The hermeneutical principle that words must be interpreted in light of the nature of the subject of which they are predicated is enunciated by Athanasius earlier in his Or. Ar.; cf. 2:44.

The formulations of God's relation to the world in terms of a divine “containing” of the world and of God's being in all things by his power and outside everything according to his nature are typical of Athanasius: see Against the Greeks 42; Inc. 17, 42. These conceptions are pervasive in early Christian theology: cf. Shepherd of Hermas 1.1; Origen Against Celsus IV, 92; VII, 34. On formulations of transcendence and immanence in early Christian theology, see Prestige (1964) 25– 54.

On the impassible generation of the Father, see Origen, On First Principles I, 2, 4; I, 2, 6; Letter of Alexander of Alexandria (Urk. 14).

On the revelatory significance of scriptural paradeigmata, see Or. Ar. 2:33; Letters to Serapion 1:19. See also Chapter 1, pp. 79; Pelikan (1962).

For Athanasius's treatment of this verse, see Or. Ar. 2:18–82.

For examples of Athanasius's own application of this rule, see Or. Ar. 2:8, 2:44, 3: 43. On this hermeneutical rule in Athanasius, see Sieben (1974).

Thus, the “time” signified by the scriptural passage is not the time of its composition but the “time” within the Christological narrative plot (skopos) of Scripture. Principally, for Athanasius, the scriptural plot divides into two “times”: before and after the Incarnation (cf. Or. Ar. 3:29).

It is a typical Christological formulation for Athanasius to distinguish what belongs properly to the flesh and then immediately assert that the flesh itself belongs to the Word. See Chapter 1, pp. 66–71; Anatolios (1998) 138–155.

On the Word's not being “lessened” by the body, see Inc. 17; Or. Ar. 1:42, 3:34; To Adelphius 8. Cf. Letter of Alexander of Alexandria, Urk. 14, 28.17–18. This passage essentially reproduces Or. Ar. 1:42.

Arius, Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5; cf. the anathemas of the Nicene Council.

This seems to be a standard ancient rule of exegesis; it is given expression by Jerome: “when the lesser is likened to the greater, the greater is harmed by the comparison, while the lower benefits” (Against Jovinian 1:3). Thus, in his exegesis of Psalm 1, he rejects the allegorical interpretation by which the “happy man” is Christ, explaining that the “happy man” of the psalm is likened to a tree (v. 3): “for if Christ is compared to a tree, he is less than the tree since in a comparison the thing compared is less than that to which it is compared; hence, the tree would be greater than the Lord who is compared to it” (Homily 1 on Psalm 1; ET: FOC, Vol. 48, 3–4).

It is likely that Athanasius is here rephrasing and dramatizing Arius's conception (shared by Asterius) that there are two Words, the one immanent in God and the other being the created “Word” which participates in God's immanent Word (see Arius, Thalia, in Or. Ar. 1:5, and On the Council of Ariminum and Seleucia 15). The authenticity of the quotation is not implausible insofar as it seems to be an instance of a typical strategy employed by anti-Nicene theologians of devaluing the distinction of the scriptural titles of Christ by showing that they are also applicable to other creatures. See Hanson (1988) 838–839, with other examples.

Athanasius's argumentation here bears considerable resemblance to that of Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstration of the Gospel IV:3.

At the Council of Nicaea; cf. the accounts in Letter to the Bishops of Africa (Ad Afros) 5, and On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 36.

Cf. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 36.

Shepherd of Hermes 1:1.

A similar list of mistaken conceptions of creation is found in Inc. 2. Those who speak of an origination of the world by chance are the Epicureans; those who speak of another creator are the followers of Marcion, the Manichees, and the “Gnostics.” In his polemic against the Valentinians, Irenaeus counters those who believe that the world was created by angels (Against the Heresies II, 2, 1).

Thus, Athanasius is asserting his own definition of what constitutes the Son's being “alone” or “unique” (monos). Arius tended to restrict the title to “the God” in distinction from the created Word (Thalia, in On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15); Asterius was more ready to apply it to the Word who is the preexistent Christ in the sense that this Word is “alone” directly created by God (Syntagmation, Frs. 28, 29, Vinzent (1993); see above, On the Council of Nicaea 7, 8). Having argued against this latter interpretation, Athanasius now asserts his own definition of the Son's being alone in a way that is basically equivalent to “homoousios.”

The verse is taken quite out of context. It runs: “for we who live are always being given up to death for the sake of Jesus.” But Asterius, not unlike Athanasius, is here simply concerned with establishing scriptural linguistic rules; his point is that the word “always” is used of ordinary people and not only Christ. See n. 45, above.

As he immediately goes on to say, Athanasius has been quoting Asterius (Syntagmation, Fr. 46, Vinzent (1993)). The section from the beginning of 19 up to this point is essentially reproduced in Letter to the Bishops of Africa 5. Athanasius's account of the Council of Nicaea in On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 35–36 is closely dependent on the account presented here.

Symbol of Nicaea, Urk. 25, 52.

Presumably, referring to phrases like “there was once when he was not,” perhaps in allusion to Eusebius of Caesarea's admission that such phrases are unscriptural. See the Letter of Eusebius of Caesarea to his Church, AW II/I, 30. See also n. 12, above.

Eusebius of Caesarea takes this text as applying to the Incarnation: Dem. Ev. IV, 15, 47ff.

Cf. On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 34, 35.

On Athanasius's identification of God with Being, see Meijering (1974) 7, 126, and Ricken (1978).

On the significance of this scriptural image in Athanasius's theology, see Pelikan (1962).

Greek: apaugasma; see Heb 1:3, Wis 7:26.

That is, the explanation of the Nicene phrase “from the essence” (ek tēs ousias).

The doctrine that the Son is unlike the Father in essence (anomios, heteroousios) began to be popularized in the 350s by the “neo-Arians” Aetius and Eunomius, but Arius had already spoken of the unlikeness of essence between Father, Son, and Spirit; cf. Thalia, in Or. Ar. 1:5. On “neo-Arianism,” see all of Kopecek (1979).

True contemplation of God involves transcending material conceptions; cf. Against the Greeks 2.

Jn 10:30; see above.

This appears to be the teaching of Asterius: Syntagmation, Fr. 77, Vinzent (1993) 140.

AW II/I, 20. Newman translates: “For if he partakes in fullness the light from the Father, why is he not rather that which others partake, that there be no medium introduced between him and the Father?” (NPNF IV, 166). In the original text, there is no mention of “others” partaking the Son; that addition is supplied by Newman to elucidate the sense in which he construes the text. (Athanasius asks: “diati me mallon autos esti to metechomenon?”) Newman's translation has obscured rather than clarified Athanasius's argument. First of all, the “Arians” (especially Asterius, who seems to be in view here) did not disagree with the notion that others partake of the Son, so it would not make any sense for Athanasius to ask, “why is he not…that which others partake?” Secondly, that others partake of the Son does not in itself rule out the introduction of a medium between the Son and the Father. Rather, Athanasius's argument is that if one speaks of the Son as wholly participating the Father, then (precisely because the participation is whole) the Son is what he participates (i.e. shares fully in the being of the Father). Thus, the argument here essentially reduplicates the line of thought and articulation that is found in Or. Ar. 1:15–16; there, Athanasius asserts that “what is partaken” (to metechomenon) is directly the essence of the Father, which is thus also the essence of the Son (1:15; AW I/I.II, 125.25–26), and “what is partaken of the Father is the Son” (to de ek tou patros metechomenon, touto estin ho huios)” (1:16; AW I/I.II, 125.6). This construction fits in consistently with the immediate context. First, the “Arians” as well as Paul of Samosata (as represented by Athanasius) would not agree that the Son is what he participates. Secondly, saying that the Son is what he participates ensures that there is no “medium” in this case between the Son who wholly participates and the Father who is wholly participated. For an analysis of the closely parallel argument in Or. Ar. 1:15–16, see Anatolios (1998) 105–109. The awkwardness of saying that the Son participates the Father and is himself what he participates highlights the terminological deficiency under which Athanasius is laboring, in that he does not have distinct terms for the distinction and sameness between Son and Father. Nevertheless, the distinction remains even in this model of participation, in that the Son is what he participates precisely as the one who participates and not the one who is participated. Ironically, the exposition of the argument in Or. Ar. 1:15–16 is clearer because of the use of ousia-language: what the Son participates is the ousia of the Father, which is also the ousia of the Son. Given that Athanasius is on the defensive here with respect precisely to the use of ousia language, he seems to be trying to make his argument without such terminology.

That is to say, if the Son is not himself the same in being as the light which he participates (i.e. the Father's divinity), then creation has not come to be through the agency of the Son himself but through the agency of the light in which he participates and in relation to which he is other.

See Chapter 1, p. 5, 8–9.

Dionysius was head of the catechetical school of Alexandria (ca. 233–248) and then bishop of Alexandria (248–265). Sabellius (third century) was understood to have advocated a modalism by which Son and Spirit are “modes” of divine being.

This supposed excerpt from Dionysius reappears in On the Thought of Dionysius 18 and On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 44. On the question of the authenticity of these excerpts, see Chapter 1, n. 37.

Origen, On First Principles IV, 4, 1; cf. Koetschau, Fr. 32 (from Justinian, Ep. ad Mennam (Mansi IX 525) (H. Görgemanns and H. Karpp (eds) Origenes. Vier Bücher von den Prinzipien, Texte zur Forschung 24 (Darmstadt, 1976) 784)).

Ibid.

For parallel treatments of the different meanings of “unoriginated,” see Or. Ar. 1: 30ff.; On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 46.

Perhaps what Athanasius has in mind is the statement by Plotinus that intelligible realities are unoriginated (agenēta) in the sense that they do not have a beginning (archē) in time but originated in the sense that they do have a beginning (archē) (Enneads II, 4, 5, 25ff.). In Or. Ar. 1:31, Athanasius had made a similar distinction in saying that the Son could be said to be “unoriginated” insofar as he does not begin to be but exists eternally, notwithstanding that his eternal existence is derived from the Father. In this treatise, he falls short of repeating the assertion that the Son could be called “unoriginated” in a certain sense. Between the writing of Or. Ar. and this treatise, the anti-Nicene Council of Antioch of 344, in its “Macrostich” or “Long-lined” creed, had explicitly anathematized anyone who referred to the Son as “without beginning” (anarchos, or agennētos) (see On the Council of Ariminum 26). Much of the difficulty involved in this discussion can be traced to the fact that there was no clearly held distinction at this point between agenēton (“uncreated”) and agennēton (“ungenerated,” or “unbegotten”). See Prestige (1923).

There is no ascertainable direct source for Athanasius's reporting of the three definitions of agenētos. However, categorization of the various senses of “unoriginated” goes back to Aristotle's On the Heavens I, 11, in which three definitions are also given: (1) “whenever something now is, which formerly was not, no process of becoming or change being involved. Such is the case, according to some, with contact and motion, since there is no process of coming to be in contact or motion”; (2) “when something which is capable of coming or of having come to be does not exist”; and (3) “where there is a general impossibility of any generation” (tr. J.L.Stocks, in J.Barnes (ed.) The Complete Works of Aristotle, Bollingen Series LXXX.2 (Princeton, 1984) 465). The third definition reported by Athanasius was the one articulated by Asterius as applicable to God. It has resonances with Plato's definition of the unoriginated principle (arche agenēton) as that which is the origin of all which comes into being but which is itself without an origin (ouk ex archēs) (Phaedrus 245 d). Vinzent also suggests that Asterius was influenced by the Aristotelian conception of the first principle as Reason and Unmoved Mover (Metaphysics? 8. 1073 a). Cf. Or. Ar. 1:30 (=Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 2, Vinzent (1993) 153–154. See also Opitz, AW II/I, 25.

The assertion that things that have already come into being would be unoriginated according to the definition of the term as “what has not yet come into being but can become” seems inconsistent. Presumably, Athanasius means that according to this definition, all things that have come into being were unbegotten before they came into being.

The inflammatory language underscores Athanasius's point that the Arian position, as a “blasphemy,” should induce outrage; he expresses this outrage in biblical terms. Cf. Ex 19:13, 21:17.

Asterius, Syntagmation, Fr. 4, Vinzent (1993) 153–154. “agenēton.”

That is to say, the title of “agenēton.” Newman translates: “For the name of offspring does not detract from the nature of the Word” (NPNF IV, 170), but that is clearly inconsistent with the context.

Athanasius's discussion of this point reproduces his argumentation in Or. Ar. 1:33.

Pantokrator: the title is pervasive throughout the Scriptures; among the prophets, it occurs most frequently in Zephaniah.

“Identity” (idiotēta) here does not mean “identical,” but refers to the correlation between Father and Son that is designated by the term idios; see Chapter 1, pp. 66– 74.

The following section is a virtually identical reproduction of Or. Ar. 1:34.

Cf. Or. Ar. 2:41–43; Letters to Serapion 1:29–30.

4 LETTERS TO SERAPION ON THE HOLY SPIRIT (1:15–33)

Historia Acephala 1.7 (Martin).

While the Letters have been traditionally divided into four, the second and third letters constitute a single whole. What is known as the second letter contextualizes Athanasius's defense of the divinity of the Holy Spirit by reasserting the divinity of the Son, while “the third letter” is essentially an abridgement of the first. The latter part of the fourth letter (4:8–23), a short commentary on Mt 12:32, appears to be a distinct composition. On the manuscript tradition of the Letters to Serapion, see Opitz (1935) 163–164; Shapland (1951) 11–16; Lebon (1947) 17–22; Cattaneo (1986) 12–15.

The same rule is articulated in Rufinus's version of Origen's On First Principles I, 3, 4.

See 1:7.

The scriptural reference to the Son as “only-begotten” (monogenēs) (Jn 3:16, 1 Jn 4: 9) was of crucial significance for both Nicene and anti-Nicene theology. For Athanasius, it signified the uniqueness of the Son's being, as altogether of a different order than that of creation. For Arius and Asterius, and anti-Nicene theology in general, it is a term that differentiates the Son from the “unoriginated/ uncreated” (agen(n)ētos) God, although for Asterius it also indicated the unique status of the Son as the only one who is directly created by God. Here, the argument is being made by the “Tropici” that if the Spirit proceeds from the Father, then the title signifying the Son's uniqueness is being subverted.

Greek: periergazomenoi; cf. 2 Thess 3:11. Athanasius goes on to give the counterexample of Abraham, who did not pry (oute perieirgasato) but accepted God's word in faith; see below, 1:17.

Athanasius is here transposing to his argumentation on behalf of the Spirit's divinity his typical strategy of referring questions posed about the Son back to the Father, with the intention of showing that such questions are simply inapplicable and unanswerable because they project creaturely categories and conundrums into the realm of the divine. Cf. Or. Ar. 1:22, 1:25, 3:63; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31:7.

For Athanasius, valid theological reasoning always makes allowance for the difference between God and creation; any analogy between human experience and divine being involves an abstraction from creaturely limitations and a consideration of divine perfection. Cf. Or. Ar. 1:28; On the Council of Nicaea 11.

This is a repeated theme in Athanasius: cf. Or. Ar. 1:21, 1:28, 3:4; On the Council of Nicaea 11, of which this section is a fairly close paraphrase.

Greek: mērē…eisin allēlon; cf. Rom 12:5, Eph 4:25.

That the relation of the Son and the Father does not involve “partition” was a common concern for both Nicene and anti-Nicene theologians, from the outbreak of the controversy onwards; cf. Letter of Arius to Alexander (Urk. 6), Letter of Alexander of Alexandria (Urk. 14).

On the relation of the Son to the Father as “whole” of the “whole,” see Or. Ar. 1:16, 2:35.

For the expression “always Father, always Son,” see Letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Thessalonica (Urk. 14, 26).

Accepting the emendation of Shapland, following the reading of BA, rather than Montfaucon's adoption of RS; see Shapland (1951) 103, n. 10.

Cf. On the Council of Nicaea 20.

Gregory of Nazianzus adopts a similar maneuver by beginning his exposition of Trinitarian theology with the incapacity of the human mind to comprehend even creaturely realities; cf. Oration 30:31.

On scriptural paradeigmata, see Chapter 1, pp. 79ff; Pelikan (1962). Cf., inter alia, Or. Ar. 2:33, 2:71, 3:52; On the Council of Nicaea 12.

The language of unlikeness being refuted here is indicative of the influence of Aetius and Eunomius on those whom Athanasius is opposing. Athanasius seems to be begging the question, insofar as he is already presuming that the Trinity is a single entity, so that the positing of unlikeness is considered as attributing a lack of selfconsistency to the Trinity. But he has just shown, to his satisfaction at least, that the singleness of the Trinity is manifest from the scriptural witness to the common activity of Father, Son, and Spirit.

On “pious reasoning,” see On the Thought of Dionysius 2; Or. Ar. 1:9. For Athanasius, this means reasoning that is anchored in the patterns of scriptural narrative and symbols.

The Spirit is called “image” of the Father in Irenaeus, Against the Heresies IV, 7, 4. As here, Athanasius tends to speak of the Spirit as image of the Son (cf. below, 1: 24; Letters to Serapion 4:3; see Bernard (1952) 127–130). This identification is also used by Cyril of Alexandria (Thesauras 33) and John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith 1:13.

The notion of the Spirit's procession as involving a “shining forth” from the Son becomes significant in later Byzantine theology, with Gregory of Cyprus and Gregory Palamas; see Staniloae (1980) 11–44.

Cf. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 43.

The reference is to the proof-texts of Am 4:13 and 1 Tim 5:21.

Athanasius will now proceed to recount the scriptural “names” of the Spirit, as he has done elsewhere with regard to the Son. (e.g., inter alia, Against the Greeks 46; Or. Ar. 1:16, 1:19, 1:20). The same method will be employed by Basil, On the Holy Spirit 22ff., and Gregory Nazianzus, Orations 33:29. Throughout, Athanasius is concerned to show that, within the divine-human relation, the Spirit is an active agent and not a passive recipient. Such arguments are resonant of the Stoic polarity of to poioun (“the active”) and to paschon (“the passive”); see Chapter 1, pp. 68ff.

Greek: autozoe. Cf. Against the Greeks 47; Inc. 20; Origen, Against Celsus 3:41.

On the Spirit as an “anointing” mediated by the Incarnate Word, see Or. Ar. 1:46ff.

It would have suited Athanasius's argument here to have quoted the whole text: “In him {Christ} you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God's possession, to the praise of his glory.” Presumably, he was counting on his audience to know that the sealing referred to the Spirit.

A creature cannot join other creatures to God and grant other creatures participation in divine life. This argument had been used by Athanasius in defense of the divinity of the Son; cf., for example, Or. Ar. 2:41, 2:69, 2:70. This reasoning is taken up by Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 31:4.

Cf. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 36.

Having elaborated on the names and designations of the Spirit's work in the Scriptures, Athanasius now focuses on the scriptural patterns of correlating the Spirit and the Son.

In the Pauline text cited by Athanasius, the adoption granted by the Spirit is identified with “glorification,” which is presumably what Athanasius has in mind when referring to this passage for evidence that the Spirit is “Spirit of glory.” Cf. Rom 8:16: “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

The same argument is used by Athanasius in reference to the Son's joining the world to the Father; cf. Or. Ar. 2:26, On the Council of Nicaea 8.

Cf. Or. Ar. 1:35ff., on the inalterability of the Son.

As far as concerns the biblical phrase, considered in itself, it would be better translated as “the angels who did not keep to their own domain (archēn)” as does the New American Bible. However, given Athanasius's theological perspective, he would be inclined to understand the arche referred to in the biblical text as the origination of the angels from God.

cf. Or. Ar. 1:35.

On “filling all things” as a divine attribute, see Chapter 3, n. 35; cf. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 54. In subsequent Byzantine liturgical tradition, the Spirit is typically described as “Heavenly Consoler…present in all places and filling all things.”

For a parallel Christological argument, that the Son does not participate but is participated, see Against the Greeks 46; Inc. 17.

Cf. Origen, On First Principles I, 2, 4; I, 5, 5; I, 6, 2; I, 8, 3; cf. Didymus, On the Spirit 5.

This is the only instance of Athanasius's direct application of the term “homoousios” to the Holy Spirit. It is sometimes claimed that the designation is repeated in 2:6 (Hanson (1988) 752, n. 70) or 3:1 (Shapland (1951) 133, n. 7), but in both these cases the term is applied to the Son's relation to the Father.

The identity of activity among the three “Persons” indicates identity of being; this becomes a fundamental principle of the Trinitarian theology of Cyril of Alexandria as well as of the Cappadocians. See Prestige (1936) 257–260.

cf. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies V, 18, 2; Demonstration 5; Hippolytus, Against Noetus 14; Athanasius, Or. Ar. 3:15; Letters to Serapion 3:6.

The emphatic assertion that the Spirit “truly exists and subsists” (hyparchei kai hyphestēken alēthos), as well as the preceding stress that the Trinity is such not only in name but “in reality and truth” (alētheia kai hyparxei trias), inserts an anti- Sabellian insistence on the reality of the distinct existence of each of the three within the unity of Godhead. The willingness to articulate such an emphasis, perhaps in response to concern that anti-Nicene theology is equivalent to modalism, separates Athanasius from the modalist theology of Marcellus of Ancyra. This stress on the distinct and real existence of each of the Trinity is fundamental to Origen's Trinitarian theology: see On First Principles I, 2, 2; I, 2, 9; I, 3, 1.

Arius refers to the “Monad” which always was and the “Dyad” that came to be when the Son was created; see Thalia, in Athanasius, On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 15.

For the argument from baptism as applied to the Son, see Or. Ar. 2:41; see also Williams (1993) 149–180.

On the performative “idolatry” involved in referring divine honor and worship to one who is yet confessed to be a creature, see Or. Ar. 2:14, 3:16; Letter to the Bishops of Egypt 13.

Athanasius also casts doubts on “Arian” baptism in Or. Ar. 2:41; cf. Basil, On the Holy Spirit 28. On the importance of the category of “stability” in Athanasius's theology of redemption, see Chapter 1, pp. 61–66.

That Father, Son, and Spirit are “unlike” (anomios) each other in being was the teaching of Aetius and Eunomius, whose followers were thus styled “anomeans.”

Greek: asphalēs; see n. 46, above.

cf. Or. Ar. 2:41.

The Nicene—Constantinopolitan creed of 381 professes faith in the Holy Spirit as the one who is “honored and glorified (sundoxazomenon) with the Father and the Son” (Denzinger-Schönmetzer, 150). It is pointed out that Athanasius never directly calls the Spirit “God” (Hanson (1988) 752), but the assertion that the Spirit is confessed to be God along with the Word certainly amounts to that, as does his reference to the Spirit as “homoousios”; see above, 1:27.

A similar application of this text to the Son and Spirit is found in Irenaeus, Against the Heresies I, 22, 1; Demonstration 5.

The bibilical writers.

Athanasius typically presents his defense of what he considers to be correct doctrine in terms of a pastoral concern for the simple (hoi akeraioi) who are being “deceived” by the teachers of incorrect doctrine; cf. Or. Ar. 1:1, 1:13, 1:32, 2:18, 3: 16.

Greek: pneumatomachountes. The appellation of Pneumatomachoi, or “Spirit-fighters,” coined by Athanasius (cf. the reference in Acts 5:39 to theomachoi), came to be a common taunt addressed by pro-Nicene theologians to those who denied the divinity of the Spirit.

A reference to the sin against the Holy Spirit: “But whoever speaks against the holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come” (Mt 12:32).

5 LETTER 40: TO ADELPHIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR, AGAINST THE ARIANS

See Tome to the Antiochenes 10

History of the Arians 72; Defense of his Flight 7.

See below, 5.

Cf. Thalia, in Athanasius, Or. Ar. 1:5; Asterius, Fr. 64, Vinzent (1993); Athanasius, Or. Ar. 2:37; On the Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia 18.

This interpretation is in accord with Moutsoulas (1974) and Lebon (1935) 748, n. 3. Roldanus (1968, 228–229, n. 1) considers that the doctrine represented here is not Arian but belongs to a group with “Antiochene” tendencies. His reasoning does not take sufficient account of the Arian two-Words doctrine and of Athanasius's method of conflating his opponents’ stated doctrine with its logical consequences (cf. Stülcken (1899) 68). For a refutation of this argument, see Moutsoulas (1974) 327–328.

See Or. Ar. 2:14, 3:16; cf. Letter to the Bishops of Egypt 13: “If they say that the Lord is a creature and yet worship him as a creature, how are they any different from the gentiles?” See also Letter to the Bishops of Egypt 4.

Sermones Arianorum, Fr. 16, in Bardy (1936) 212.

Kopecek (1985) 171.

The victory of Christ over the devil bestows on the disciples of Christ knowledge of the devil's stratagems; see Or. Ar. 1:51.

Here again, Athanasius's strategy of denying Christian identity to the “Arians” begins with depicting them as akin to the Jews; see Or. Ar., n. 31. He goes on to align them with the Marcionites, Manichees, and Valentinians; see 2, below.

Cf. Or. Ar. 2:70.

That it is not the Word who is lessened but humanity which is elevated by Christ's redemption is a fundamental motif of Athanasius's Christology: cf. Inc. 17; Or. Ar. 1:42, 2:14, 3:34.

This is a classic statement of Athanasius's correlation of the unity of subject in Christ and the integrity of Christian salvation. It is also a good example of how Athanasius conflates his opponents’ statements with what he considers to be their logical consequences. Obviously, the position being refuted here does not include the explicit negation that “there is one redemption from sin and one destruction of death.” However, for Athanasius, the integrity of the transformation effected by Christ's salvation necessarily involves the unity in Christ of the humanity which is in solidarity with our condition and the divinity which possesses the resources for healing and transforming our condition to the point of deification. To sever these dimensions of Christ's single salvific agency is to fragment the saving action which emanates from that agency. See Or. Ar. 2:70.

The term latreuo refers to the service of worship, as is clear from below, 7, where Athanasius speaks of the Jews serving the Lord in the temple. Cf. Augustine, On the Trinity 1:13; John Damascene, On the Divine Images 1:8.

The conception of Christ's body as a temple is prominent in Athanasius's lnc.; see, for example, 8, 9, 20, 26, 31.

Greek: typos; cf. Heb 8:5. This whole passage, with its contrast of the old cult of the temple and the new cult centered on the person of Christ, and the characterization of that contrast in terms of “shadow” and “reality,” is replete with echoes of Heb 8–9. Cf. Festal Letter XIX.

Cf. Inc. 25.

Cf. Inc. 7, 14; Or. Ar. 2:41; Irenaeus, Against the Heresies IV, 33, 4.

Hieracas is mentioned in the same list as Adelphius as being one of those banished by the Arians during the tenure of George of Cappadocia (Defense of his Flight 7; History of the Arians 72).

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