§ 124. ABIAKISM. 6i1
(not the pre-temporal, divine) Logos growth, lack of knowL edge, weariness, sorrow, and other changing human affections and states of mind,' or teach a subordination of the Son to the Fatlier."
Athanasius disposes of these arguments somewhat too easily, by referring tlie passages exclusively to the human side of the person of Jesus. When, for example, the Lord says he knows not the day nor the hour of the judgment, this ia due only to his human nature. For how should the Lord of heaven and earth, who made days and hours, not know them ! He accuses the Arians of the Jewish conceit, that divine and human are incompatible. Tlie Jews say : How could Christ, if he were God, become man, and die on the cross? The Arians say : How can Christ, who was man, be at the same time God? We, says Athanasius, are Christians; we do not stone Christ when he asserts his eternal Godhead, nor are we offended in him when he speaks to us in the language of
""JJp , Vulg. possedit me\ apxhf oScev avrov ds epya avrou • nph rov alwi/os i^e/jLfKtw o-fV ^e, K.T.K. This passage seemed clearly to prove the two propositions of Arius, that the Father created the Son, and that he created him for the purpose of creating the world through him {eh tpya auTov). Acts ii. 36 : "On Kal Kvpiov avThv koI Xpicrrhv iizoirtaev b @e6^. Heb. i. 4: Kpfirrwv y( v 6 fievo s tuv ayyfKwy Heb. iii. 2: Uiarop wra rw iro tri a av r i avruv. John i. 14: 'O \dyos crdp^ iye yero. Phil. ii. 'J-d. The last two passages are of course wholly inapposite, a' they treat of the incarnation of the Son of God, not of his pre-temporal existenc and essence. Heb. i. 4 refers to the exaltation of the God-Man. Most plausible ol all is the famous passage: irpwrn tokos ndaTjs KTiVewv, Col. i. 15, from which th« Arians inferred that Christ himself is a ktiVis of God, to wit, the first creature of aU. But npcorS TOKOS is not equivalent to irpWTOKT ktt os or Trporoir A a crros: on the contrary, Christ is by this very term distinguished from the creation, and described as the Author, Upholder, and End of the creation. A creature cannot possibly be the source of life for all creatures. The meaning of the expression, therefore, is : born before every creature, i. e., before anything was made. The text indicates the distinction between the eternal generation of the Son from the essence of the Father, and the temporal creation of the world out of nothing by the Sou. Yet there is a difference between fioroyevrr; and ttpoitStukos, which Athanasius himself makes : the former referring to the relation of the Son to the Father, the latter, to his relation to the world.
' Such as Luke ii. 52 ; Heb. v. 8, 9 John xii. 27, 28 ; Matt. xxvi. 39 ; Mark xiii. 52 ; &c.
* E. g., John xiv. 28 : 'O waTrip juef^oji/ fj.ot> eVriv. This pa.ssage also refers no> to the pre existent state of Christ, but to the state of humiliation of the God-Man.
G4r8 THIRD FEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
human poverty. But it is the peculiar doctrine of Hoi j Scrip tui'e to declare everjwliere a double tiling of Christ : that he, aij Logos and image of the Father, was ever trufy divine, and that he afterwards became man for our salvation. When Athanasius cannot refer such terms as " made," " created," " became," to the human nature, he takes them tigurutively for " testified," '* constituted," " demonstrated." '
As positive e.xegetical proofs against Arianism, Athanasiufi cites almost all the familiar proof-texts which ascribe to Christ divine names, divine attributes, divine works, and divine dignity, and which it is unnecessary hero to mention in detail.
Of course his exegesis, as well as that of the fathers in general, when viewed from the level of the modern grammatical, historical, and critical method, contains a great deal of allegorizing caprice and fancy and sophistical subtilty. But it is in general far more profound and true than the heretical.
2. The theological arguments for Arianism were predominantly negative and rationalizing. The amount of them is, that the opposite view is unreasonable, is irreconcilable with Btrict monotheism and the dignity of God, and leads to Sabellian or Gnostic errors. It is true, Marcellus of Ancyra, one ot the most zealous advocates of the Niccne homoousianism, fell into the Sabellian denial of the tri-personality," but most of the Nicene fathers steered with unerring tact between the Scylla of Sabellianism, and the Charybdis of Tritheism.
Athanasius met the theological objections of the Arians with overwhelming dialectical skill, and exposed the internal
' The iKTiat and cde/ueAi&xre in Frov. viii. '22 ff., on which tlie Ariana laid special stress, and of which Athanasius treats quite at large in his second oratiou against the Arians, he refers not to the essence of the Logos (with whom tlie ao<^'i.a was by both parties identified), but to the incarnation of the Logos and to tlie renovation of our race through him: appealing to Eph. ii. 10: "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." As to the far more important passage in Col. i. 15, Athanasius gives substantially the correct interpretation in his Expositio lidei, cap. 3 (ed. Bened. torn. i. 101), where he says : irpuTOTOKov diruf [nouAos] 5tjAo7 /u^ flvat avrhv Kriana, aWa yevvrifxa tov irarpos ' ^(voy yap fv\ r%s beSTTiras avTov rh Xfyea&at KTiff/xa. Ta yap Tcdiira ^Krladi^aai' vwh tov na'-pbi Sia TOV vloD, 6 5« v'ths fj.6vos f« tov waTphs aiSluis ^yryvrj^ri ' 5<6 irpaiTjTO<c<J$ i»r rdffijs Kri<Tf(i>s A &(hs K6yo^, 6.Tp(nT0i t{ arpfinov.
' Corap. en Marcellus of Ancyra below, § 126.