NPNF2-04. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters

Chapter XXI.—Texts Explained; Sixthly, Proverbs viii. 22, Continued. Our Lord not said in Scripture to be ‘created,’ or the works to be ‘begotten.’ ‘In the beginning’ means in the case of the works ‘from the beginning.’ Scripture passages explained. We are made by God first, begotten next; creatures by nature, sons by grace. Christ begotten first, made or created afterwards. Sense of ‘First-born of the dead;’ of ‘First-born among many brethren;’ of ‘First-born of all creation,’ contrasted with ‘Only-begotten.’ Further interpretation of ‘beginning of ways,’ and ‘for the works.’ Why a creature could not redeem; why redemption was necessary at all. Texts which contrast the Word and the works.

57. For had He been a creature, He had not said, ‘He begets me,’ for the creatures are from without, and are works of the Maker; but the Offspring is not from without nor a work, but from the Father, and proper to His Essence. Wherefore they are creatures; this God’s Word and Only-begotten Son. For instance, Moses did not say of the creation, ‘In the beginning He begat,’ nor ‘In the beginning was,’ but ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth2581.’ Nor did David say in the Psalm, ‘Thy hands have “begotten me,”’ but ‘made me and fashioned me2582,’ everywhere applying the word ‘made’ to the creatures. But to the Son contrariwise; for he has not said ‘I made,’ but ‘I begat2583,’ and ‘He begets me,’ and ‘My heart uttered a good Word2584.’ And in the instance of the creation, ‘In the beginning He made;’ but in the instance of the Son, ‘In the beginning was the Word2585.’ And there is this difference, that the creatures are made upon the beginning, and have a beginning of existence connected with an interval; wherefore also what is said of them, ‘In the beginning He made,’ is as much as saying of them, ‘From the beginning He made:’—as the Lord, knowing that which He had made, taught, when He silenced the Pharisees, with the words, ‘He which made them from the beginning, made them male and female2586;’ for from some beginning, when they were not yet, were originate things brought into being and created.

This too the Holy Spirit has signified in the Psalms, saying, ‘Thou, Lord, at the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth2587;’ and again, ‘O think upon Thy congregation which Thou hast purchased from the beginning2588;’ now it is plain that what takes place at the beginning, has a beginning of creation, and that from some beginning God purchased His congregation. And that ‘In the beginning He made,’ from his saying ‘made,’ means ‘began to make,’ Moses himself shews by saying, after the completion of all things, ‘And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God began to make2589.’ Therefore the creatures began to be made; but the Word of God, not having beginning of being, certainly did not begin to be, nor begin to come to be, but was ever. And the works have their beginning in their making, and their beginning precedes their coming to be; but the Word, not being of things which come to be, rather comes to be Himself the Framer of those which have a beginning. And the being of things originate is measured by their becoming2590, and from some beginning does God begin to make them through the Word, that it may be known that they were not before their origination; but the Word has His being, in no other beginning2591 than the Father, whom2592 they allow to be without beginning, so that He too exists without beginning in the Father, being His Offspring, not His creature.

58. Thus does divine Scripture recognise the difference between the Offspring and things made, and shew that the Offspring is a Son, not begun from any beginning, but eternal; but that the thing made, as an external work of the Maker, began to come into being. John therefore delivering divine doctrine2593 about the Son, and knowing the difference of the phrases, said not, ‘In the beginning has become’ or ‘been made,’ but ‘In the beginning was the Word;’ that we might understand ‘Offspring’ by ‘was,’ and not account of Him by intervals, but believe the Son always and eternally to exist. And with these proofs, how, O Arians, misunderstanding the passage in Deuteronomy, did you venture a fresh act of irreligion2594 against the Lord, saying that ‘He is a work,’ or ‘creature,’ or indeed ‘offspring?’ for offspring and work you take to mean the same thing; but here too you shall be shewn to be as unlearned as you are irreligious. Your first passage is this, ‘Is not He thy Father that bought thee? did He not make thee and create thee2595?’ And shortly after in the same Song he says, ‘God that begat thee thou didst desert, and forgattest God that nourished thee2596.’

Now the meaning conveyed in these passages is very remarkable; for he says not first ‘He begat,’ lest that term should be taken as indiscriminate with ‘He made,’ and these men should have a pretence for saying, ‘Moses tells us indeed that God said from the beginning, “Let Us make man2597,”’ but he soon after says himself, ‘God that begat thee thou didst desert,’ as if the terms were indifferent; for offspring and work are the same. But after the words ‘bought’ and ‘made,’ he has added last of all ‘begat,’ that the sentence might carry its own interpretation; for in the word ‘made’ he accurately denotes what belongs to men by nature, to be works and things made; but in the word ‘begat’ he shews God’s lovingkindness exercised towards men after He had created them. And since they have proved ungrateful upon this, thereupon Moses reproaches them, saying first, ‘Do ye thus requite the Lord?’ and then adds, ‘Is not He thy Father that bought thee? Did He not make thee and create thee2598?’ And next he says, ‘They sacrificed unto devils, not to God, to gods whom they knew not. New gods and strange came up, whom your fathers knew not; the God that begat thee thou didst desert2599.’

59. For God not only created them to be men, but called them to be sons, as having begotten them. For the term ‘begat’ is here as elsewhere expressive of a Son, as He says by the Prophet, ‘I begat sons and exalted them;’ and generally, when Scripture wishes to signify a son, it does so, not by the term ‘created,’ but undoubtedly by that of ‘begat.’ And this John seems to say, ‘He gave to them power to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name; which were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God2600.’ And here too the cautious distinction2601 is well kept up, for first he says ‘become,’ because they are not called sons by nature but by adoption; then he says ‘were begotten,’ because they too had received at any rate the name of son. But the People, as says the Prophet, ‘despised’ their Benefactor. But this is God’s kindness to man, that of whom He is Maker, of them according to grace He afterwards becomes Father also; becomes, that is, when men, His creatures, receive into their hearts, as the Apostle says, ‘the Spirit of His Son, crying, Abba, Father2602.’ And these are they who, having received the Word, gained power from Him to become sons of God; for they could not become sons, being by nature creatures, otherwise than by receiving the Spirit of the natural and true Son. Wherefore, that this might be, ‘The Word became flesh,’ that He might make man capable of Godhead. This same meaning may be gained also from the Prophet Malachi, who says, ‘Hath not One God created us?

Have we not all one Father2603?’ for first he puts ‘created,’ next ‘Father,’ to shew, as the other writers, that from the beginning we were creatures by nature, and God is our Creator through the Word; but afterwards we were made sons, and thenceforward God the Creator becomes our Father also. Therefore ‘Father’ is proper to the Son; and not ‘creature,’ but ‘Son’ is proper to the Father. Accordingly this passage also proves, that we are not sons by nature, but the Son who is in us2604; and again, that God is not our Father by nature, but of that Word in us, in whom and because of whom we ‘cry, Abba, Father2605.’ And so in like manner, the Father calls them sons in whomsoever He sees His own Son, and says, ‘I begat;’ since begetting is significant of a Son, and making is indicative of the works. And thus it is that we are not begotten first, but made; for it is written, ‘Let Us make man2606;’ but afterwards, on receiving the grace of the Spirit, we are said thenceforth to be begotten also; just as the great Moses in his Song with an apposite meaning says first ‘He bought,’ and afterwards ‘He begat;’ lest, hearing ‘He begat,’ they might forget their own original nature; but that they might know that from the beginning they are creatures, but when according to grace they are said to be begotten, as sons, still no less than before are men works according to nature.

60. And that creature and offspring are not the same, but differ from each other in nature and the signification of the words, the Lord Himself shews even in the Proverbs. For having said, ‘The Lord created me a beginning of His ways;’ He has added, ‘But before all the hills He begat me.’ If then the Word were by nature and in His Essence2607 a creature, and there were no difference between offspring and creature, He would not have added, ‘He begat me,’ but had been satisfied with ‘He created,’ as if that term implied ‘He begat;’ but, as it is, after saying, ‘He created me a beginning of His ways for His works,’ He has added, not simply ‘begat me,’ but with the connection of the conjunction ‘But,’ as guarding thereby the term ‘created,’ when he says, ‘But before all the hills He begat me.’ For ‘begat me’ succeeding in such close connection to ‘created me,’ makes the meaning one, and shews that ‘created’ is said with an object2608, but that ‘begat me’ is prior to ‘created me.’ For as, if He had said the reverse, ‘The Lord begat me,’ and went on, ‘But before the hills He created me,’ ‘created’ would certainly precede ‘begat,’ so having said first ‘created,’ and then added ‘But before all the hills He begat me,’ He necessarily shews that ‘begat’ preceded ‘created.’ For in saying, ‘Before all He begat me,’ He intimates that He is other than all things; it having been shewn to be true2609 in an earlier part of this book, that no one creature was made before another, but all things originate subsisted at once together upon one and the same command2610.

Therefore neither do the words which follow ‘created,’ also follow ‘begat me;’ but in the case of ‘created’ is added ‘beginning of ways,’ but of ‘begat me,’ He says not, ‘He begat me as a beginning,’ but ‘before all He begat me.’ But He who is before all is not a beginning of all, but is other than all2611; but if other than all (in which ‘all’ the beginning of all is included), it follows that He is other than the creatures; and it becomes a clear point, that the Word, being other than all things and before all, afterwards is created ‘a beginning of the ways for works,’ because He became man, that, as the Apostle has said, He who is the ‘Beginning’ and ‘First-born from the dead, in all things might have the preeminence2612.’