67. Therefore call not the Son a work of good pleasure; nor bring in the doctrine of Valentinus into the Church; but be He the Living Counsel, and Offspring in truth and nature, as the Radiance from the Light. For thus has the Father spoken, My heart uttered a good Word;' and the Son conformably, I in the Father and the Father in Me [3262] .' But if the Word be in the heart, where is will? and if the Son in the Father, where is good pleasure? and if He be Will Himself, how is counsel in Will? it is unseemly; lest the Word come into being in a word, and the Son in a son, and Wisdom in a wisdom, as has been repeatedly [3263] said. For the Son is the Father's All; and nothing was in the Father before the Word; but in the Word is will also, and through Him the objects of will are carried into effect, as holy Scriptures have shewn. And I could wish that the irreligious men, having fallen into such want of reason [3264] as to be considering about will, would now ask their childbearing women no more, whom they used to ask, Hadst thou a son before conceiving him [3265] ?' but the father, Do ye become fathers by counsel, or by the natural law of your will?' or Are your children like your nature and essence [3266] ?' that, even from fathers they may learn shame, from whom they assumed this proposition [3267] about birth, and from whom they hoped to gain knowledge in point. For they will reply to them, What we beget, is like, not our good pleasure [3268] , but like ourselves; nor become we parents by previous counsel, but to beget is proper to our nature; since we too are images of our fathers.' Either then let them condemn themselves [3269] , and cease asking women about the Son of God, or let them learn from them, that the Son is begotten not by will, but in nature and truth. Becoming and suitable to them is a refutation from human instances [3270] , since the perverse-minded men dispute in a human way concerning the Godhead. Why then are Christ's enemies still mad? for this, as well as their other pretences, is shewn and proved to be mere fantasy and fable; and on this account, they ought, however late, contemplating the precipice of folly down which they have fallen, to rise again from the depth and to flee the snare of the devil, as we admonish them. For Truth is loving unto men and cries continually, If because of My clothing of the body ye believe Me not, yet believe the works, that ye may know that "I am in the Father and the Father in Me," and "I and the Father are one," and "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father [3271] ."' But the Lord according to His wont is loving to man, and would fain help them that are fallen,' as the praise of David [3272] says; but the irreligious men, not desirous to hear the Lord's voice, nor bearing to see Him acknowledged by all as God and God's Son, go about, miserable men, as beetles, seeking with their father the devil pretexts for irreligion. What pretexts then, and whence will they be able next to find? unless they borrow blasphemies of Jews and Caiaphas, and take atheism from Gentiles? for the divine Scriptures are closed to them, and from every part of them they are refuted as insensate and Christ's enemies.
[3203] This chapter is in a very different style from the foregoing portions of this Book, and much more resembles the former two; not only in its subject and the mode of treating it, but in the words introduced, e.g. epispeirousi, epinoousi, gonguzousi, kath' humas, atopon, lexeidion, heis ton panton, &c. And the references are to the former Orations.
[3204] See 50, n. 10; Serap. i. 18.
[3205] theomachoi, de Decr. 3, n. 1; Or. ii. 32, n. 4. Vid. Dissert. by Bucher on the word in Acts v. 39. ap. Thesaur. Theol. Phil. N. T. t. 2.
[3206] theostugeis, §40.
[3207] §64, note.
[3208] Or. ii. 73, n. 7.
[3209] peribombousi. De Decr. 14, n. 1; also de Fug. 2, 6. Naz. Orat. 27, 2. c.
[3210] S. Ignatius speaks of our Lord as Son of God according to the will (thelema) and power of God.' ad Smyrn. 1. S. Justin as God and Son according to His will, boulen.' Tryph. 127, and begotten from the Father at His will, thelesei.' ibid. 61. and he says, dunamei kai boule autou. ibid. 128. S. Clement issuing from the Father's will itself quicker than light.' Gent. 10 fin. S. Hippolytus, Whom God the Father, willing, bouletheis, begat as He willed, hos ethelesen. contr. Noet. 16. Origen, ek thelematos. ap. Justin. ad. Menn. vid. also cum filius charitatis etiam voluntatis. Periarch. iv. 28.
[3211] dianoias interpretation, §26, n. 9.
[3212] Cf. Ep. Æg. 8. and supr. ii. 3. Also Letter 54 fin. Vid. supr. de Decr. 10, n. 3. And vid. Leont. contr. Nest. iii. 41. (p. 581. Canis.) He here seems alluding to the Semi-Arians, Origen, and perhaps the earlier Fathers.
[3213] Tatian had said thelemati propeda ho logos. Gent. 5. Tertullian had said, Ut primum voluit Deus ea edere, ipsum primum protulit sermonem. adv. Prax. 6. Novatian, Ex quo, quando ipse voluit, Sermo filius natus est. de Trin. 31. And Constit. Apost. ton pro ai& 240;non eudoki& 139; tou patros gennethenta. vii. 41. Pseudo-Clem. Genuit Deus voluntate præcedente. Recognit. iii. 10. Eusebius, kata gnomen kai proairesin bouletheis ho theos; ek tes tou patros boules kai dunameos. Dem. iv. 3. Arius, thelemati kai boule hupeste. ap. Theod. H. E. i. 4. p. 750. vid. also de Syn. 16.
[3214] Prov. xii. 5, 6. LXX.
[3215] De Decr. 20.
[3216] p. 69. n. 8.
[3217] And so supr. de Decr. 18, by what Saint have they been taught "at will?"' That is, no one ever taught it in the sense in which they explained it; that he has just said, He who says "at will" has the same meaning as he who says "Once He was not."' Cf. below §§61, 64, 66. Certainly as the earlier Fathers had used the phrase, so those who came after Arius. Thus Nyssen in the passage in contr. Eun. vii. referred to in the next note. And Hilar. Syn. 37. The same father says, unitate Patris et virtute. Psalm xci. 8. and ut voluit, ut potuit, ut scit qui genuit. Trin. iii. 4. And he addresses Him as non invidum bonorum tuorum in Unigeniti tui nativitate. ibid. vi. 21. S. Basil too speaks of our Lord as autozoen kai autoagathon, from the quickening Fountain, the Father's goodness, agathotetos.' contr. Eun. ii. 25. And Cæsarius calls Him agapen patros. Quæst. 39. Vid. Ephrem. Syr. adv. Scrut. R. vi. 1. Oxf. Tra. and note there. Maximus Taurin. says, that God is per omnipotentiam Pater. Hom. de trad. Symb. p. 270. ed. 1784, vid. also Chrysol. Serm. 61. Ambros. de Fid. iv. 8. Petavius refers in addition to such passages as one just quoted from S. Hilary, which speak of God as not invidus, so as not to communicate Himself, since He was able. Si non potuit, infirmus; si non voluit, invidus. August. contr. Maxim. iii. 7.
[3218] Matt. iii. 17; Ps. xlv. 1; John i. 1; Ps. xxxvi. 9; Heb. i. 3; Phil. ii. 26; Col. i. 15.
[3219] proegoumenen and 61 fin. The antecedens voluntas has been mentioned in Recogn. Clem. supr. note 11. For Ptolemy vid. Epiph. Hær. p. 215. The Catholics, who allowed that our Lord was thelesei, explained it as a sundromos thelesis, and not a proegoumene; as Cyril. Trin. ii. p. 56. And with the same meaning S. Ambrose, nec voluntas ante Filium nec potestas. de Fid. v. 224. And S. Gregory Nyssen, His immediate union, amesos sunapheia, does not exclude the Father's will, boulesin, nor does that will separate the Son from the Father.' contr. Eunom. vii. p. 206, 7. vid. the whole passage. The alternative which these words, sundromos and proegoumene, expressed was this; whether an act of Divine Purpose or Will took place before the Generation of the Son, or whether both the Will and the Generation were eternal, as the Divine Nature was eternal. Hence Bull says, with the view of exculpating Novatian, Cum Filius dicitur ex Patre, quando ipse voluit, nasci. Velle illud Patris æternum fuisse intelligendum. Defens. F. N. iii. 8. §8.
[3220] proballein, de Syn. 16, n. 8.
[3221] epigegone, Or. i. 25, 28 fin. iii. 6.
[3222] Ps. cxv. 3; cxi. 2. LXX.; cxxxv. 6.
[3223] Cf. ii. n. 1.
[3224] Cf. ii. 18-43.
[3225] 1 Cor. i. 1, &c.
[3226] Eph. i. 5.
[3227] ii. 31 seqq.
[3228] James i. 18.
[3229] 1 Thess. v. 18.
[3230] 64, note 4.
[3231] Thus he makes the question a nugatory one, as if it did not go to the point, and could not be answered, or might be answered either way, as the case might be. Really Nature and Will go together in the Divine Being, but in order, as we regard Him, Nature is first, Will second, and the generation belongs to Nature, not to Will. And so supr. Or. i. 29; ii. 2. In like manner S. Epiphanius, Hær. 69, 26. vid. also Ancor. 51. vid. also Ambros. de Fid. iv. 4. vid. others, as collected in Petav. Trin. vi. 8. §§14-16.
[3232] Two distinct meanings may be attached to by will' (as Dr. Clark observes, Script. Doct. p. 142. ed. 1738), either a concurrence or acquiescence, or a positive act. S. Cyril uses it in the former sense, when he calls it sundromos, as quoted §60, n. 1; and when he says (with Athan. infr.) that the Father wills His own subsistence, theleges esti, but is not what He is from any will, ek bouleseos tinos,' Thes. p. 56; Dr. Clark would understand it in the latter sense, with a view of inferring that the Son was subsequent to a Divine act, i.e. not eternal; but what Athan. says leads to the conclusion, that it does not matter which sense is taken. He does not meet the Arian objection, if not by will therefore by necessity,' by speaking of a concomitant will, or merely saying that the Almighty exists or is good, by will, with S. Cyril, but he says that nature transcends will and necessity also.' Accordingly, Petavius is even willing to allow that the ek boules is to be ascribed to the gennesis in the sense which Dr. Clark wishes, i.e. he grants that it may precede the gennesis, i.e. in order, not in time, in the succession of our ideas, Trin. vi. 8, §§20, 21; and follows S. Austin, Trin. xv. 20. in preferring to speak of our Lord rather as voluntas de voluntate, than, as Athan. is led to do, as the voluntas Dei.
[3233] Vid. Or. i. 25, n. 2. Also Serap. i. 15, 16 init. 17, 20; iv. 8, 14. Ep. Æg. 11 fin. Didym. Trin. iii. 3. p. 341. Ephr. Syr. adv. Hær. Serm. 55 init. (t. 2. p. 557.) Facund. Tr. Cap. iii. 3 init.
[3234] epigegonos, §60, n. 3.
[3235] logisasthai tina boulesin, as §66 (Latin version inexact).
[3236] agathou patros agathon boulema. Clem. Ped. iii. circ. fin. sophia, chrestotes, dunamis, thelema pantokratorikon. Strom. v. p. 547. Voluntas et potestas patris. Tertull. Orat. 4. Natus ex Patri quasi voluntas ex mente procedens. Origen. Periarch. i. 2. §6. S. Jerome notices the same interpretation of by the will of God' in the beginning of Comment. in Ephes. But cf. Aug. Trin. xv. 20. And so Cæsarius, agape ex agapes. Qu. 39.
[3237] Prov. viii. 14.
[3238] 1 Cor. i. 24.
[3239] zosa boule. supr. Or. ii. 2. Cyril in Joan. p. 213. zosa dunamis. Sabell. Greg. 5. c. zosa eikon. Naz. Orat. 30, 20. c. zosa energeia. Syn. Antioch. ap. Routh. Reliqu. t. 2. p. 469. zosa ischus. Cyril. in Joan. p. 951. zosa sophia. Origen. contr. Cels. iii. fin. zon logos. Origen. ibid. zon organon (heretically) Euseb. Dem. iv. 2.
[3240] Is. ix. 6.
[3241] Or. ii. 33, n. 12.
[3242] Ps. lxxiii. 23, 24.
[3243] di' heterou tinos. This idea has been urged against the Arians again and again, as just above, §61; e.g. de Decr. 8, 24; Or. i. 15, below 65, sub. fin. vid. also Epiph. Hær. 76. p. 951. Basil. contr. Eunom. ii. 11. c. 17, a. &c.
[3244] §60.
[3245] polukephalos hairesis. And so poluk. panourgia, §62. The allusion is to the hydra, with its ever-springing heads, as introduced §58, n. 5. and with a special allusion to Asterius who is mentioned, §60, and in de Syn. 18. is called poluk. sophistes.
[3246] Or. ii. 43, n. 4.
[3247] §16, n. 4.
[3248] Or. i. 57; ii. 23.
[3249] Prov. viii. 14.
[3250] peri ton theon. vid. de Decr. 22, n. 1; Or. i. 15. Also Orat. i. 27, where (n. 2 a.), it is mistranslated. Euseb. Eccl. Theol. iii. p. 150. vid. de Syn. 34, n. 7.