[951] Four senses of ageneton are enumerated, Orat. i. §30. 1. What is not as yet, but is possible; 2. what neither has been nor can be; 3. what exists, but has not come to be from any cause; 4. what is not made, but is ever. Only two senses are specified in the de Syn. §46. and in these the question really lies; 1. what is, but without a cause; 2. uncreate.
[952] Ballesthosan para panton, Orat. ii. §28. An apparent allusion to the punishment of blasphemy and idolatry under the Jewish Law. vid. [Ex. xix. 13. and] reference to Ex. xxi. 17, in §27, note 2. Thus, e.g. Nazianzen: While I go up the mount with good heart, that I may become within the cloud, and may hold converse with God, for so God bids; if there be any Aaron, let him go up with me and stand near. And if there be any Nadab or Abihu, or of the elders, let him go up, but stand far off, according to the measure of his purification....But if any one is an evil and savage beast, and quite incapable of science and theology; let him stand off still further, and depart from the mount: or he will be stoned and crushed; for the wicked shall be miserably destroyed. For as stones for the bestial are true words and strong. Whether he be leopard, let him die spots and all,' &c. &c. Orat. 28. 2.
[953] The Arians argued that the word unoriginate implied originate or creature as its correlative, and therefore indirectly signified Creator; so that the Son being not unoriginate, was not the Creator. Athan. answers, that in the use of the word, whether there be a Son does not come into the question. As the idea of Father and Son does not include creation, so that of creator and creature does not include generation; and it would be as illogical to infer that there are no creatures because there is a Son as that there is no Son because there are creatures.
[954] The whole of this passage is repeated in Orat. i. 32. &c. vid. for this particular argument, Basil also, contr. Eunom. i. 16.
[955] i.e. of hosts.
[956] John xiv. 9, 10.
[957] Ib. x. 30.
[958] Matt. vi. 9.
[959] And so S. Basil, Our faith was not in Framer and Work, but in Father and Son were we sealed through the grace in baptism.' contr. Eunom. ii. 22. And a somewhat similar passage occurs Orat. ii. §41.
[960] huiopoioumetha alethos. This strong term truly' or verily' seems taken from such passages as speak of the grace and truth' of the Gospel, John i. 12-17. Again S. Basil says, that we are sons, kurios, properly,' and protos primarily,' in opposition to tropikos, figuratively,' contr. Eunom. ii. 23. S. Cyril too says, that we are sons naturally' phusikos as well as kata charin, vid. Suicer Thesaur. v. hui& 231;s. i. 3. Of these words, alethos, phusikos, kurios, and protos, the first two are commonly reserved for our Lord; e.g. ton alethos hui& 232;n, Orat. ii. §37. hemeis huioi, ouk hos ekeinos phusei kai aletheia, iii. §19. Hilary seems to deny us the title of proper' sons; de Trin. xii. 15; but his proprium' is a translation of idion, not kurios. And when Justin says of Christ ho monos legomenos kurios hui& 232;s, Apol. ii. 6. kurios seems to be used in reference to the word kurios, Lord, which he has just been using, kuriologein being sometimes used by him as others in the sense of naming as Lord,' like theologein. vid. Tryph. 56. There is a passage in Justin's ad Græc. 21. where he (or the writer) when speaking of ego eimi ho hon, uses the word in the same ambiguous sense; ouden gar onoma epi theou kuriologeisthai dunaton, 21; as if kurios, the Lord, by which I am' is translated, were a sort of symbol of that proper name of God which cannot be given. But to return; the true doctrine then is, that, whereas there is a primary and secondary sense in which the word Son is used, primary when it has its formal meaning of continuation of nature, and secondary when it is used nominally, or for an external resemblance to the first meaning, it is applied to the regenerate, not in the secondary sense, but in the primary. S. Basil and S. Gregory Nyssen consider Son to be a term of relationship according to nature' (vid. supr. §10, note 1.), also Basil in Psalm xxviii. 1. The actual presence of the Holy Spirit in the regenerate in substance (vid. Cyril, Dial. 7. p. 638.) constitutes this relationship of nature; and hence after the words quoted from S. Cyril in the beginning of the note, in which he says, that we are sons, phusikos, he proceeds, naturally, because we are in Him, and in Him alone.' vid. Athan.'s words which follow in the text at the end of §31. And hence Nyssen lays down, as a received truth, that to none does the term "proper," kuriotaton, apply, but to one in whom the name responds with truth to the nature,' contr. Eunom. iii. p. 123. And he also implies, p. 117, the intimate association of our sonship with Christ's, when he connects together regeneration with our Lord's eternal generation, neither being dia pathous, or, of the will of the flesh. If it be asked, what the distinctive words are which are incommunicably the Son's, since so much is man's, it is obvious to answer, idios hui& 232;s and monogenes, which are in Scripture, and the symbols of the essence,' and one in essence,' of the Council; and this is the value of the Council's phrases, that, while they guard the Son's divinity, they allow full scope, without risk of entrenching on it, to the Catholic doctrine of the fulness of the Christian privileges. vid. supr. §19, note.
[961] Gal. iv. 6.
[962] Cf. contr. Gent. init. Incarn. 57. ad Ep. Æg. 4. Vit. Ant. 16. And passim in Athan.
[963] And so, Orat. ii. §32, kata tous mutheuomenous gigantas. And so Nazianzen, Orat. 43. 26. speaking of the disorderly Bishops during the Arian ascendancy. Also Socr. v. 10. Sometimes the Scripture giants are spoken of, sometimes the mythological.
[964] Jer. xiii. 23.