2.20.1 The philosopher’s response: “Stop doing such great violence to the truth and trying to use your skill with words to obscure the shining splendor of Scripture like a cloud. Instead, accept the clear scriptural truth I have set before you and stop fleeing from the passages, ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works,’ and, ‘The Lord made inhabited and uninhabited places, the highest inhabited places of the earth.’

2.20.2 These passages express the same thought concerning the one Lord God, who created him first as ‘the beginning of his ways for his works,’ addressed him as his Son, and through him, as through a tool, created ‘inhabited and uninhabited places’:

2.20.3 Even though the created Wisdom of God, namely, the Son, was at work, God was nevertheless the one creating what did not exist through him as through a tool.”

2.20.4 The holy bishops’ answer through the same Eusebius Pamphili: “Since you are far removed from the royal highway, that is, the apostolic faith, you carelessly drift away from it. You are determined to fall headlong once and for all, for you scarcely rejected the deep wickedness which surrounds you when you heard from this holy council the prophecy of great Jeremiah, pointing his finger, so to speak: ‘This is our God. No one can be compared to him,’ and so on.

2.20.5 He continues, ‘Then he appeared on the earth and lived with humans.’ You know, philosopher, that the holy bishops asked you, ‘Who appeared on the earth and lived with humans—the Father or the Son?’ You confessed, ‘The Son, just as the Holy Scriptures say.’

2.20.6 Did you not say this? How is it that you are again throwing yourself into the depths of Arius’s wickedness, or rather, sinking into it? You have not broken free from Arius, to whom you yoked yourself. Wretched man, you prefer the blasphemies of Arius to apostolic doctrine, for you call the Son of God a creature and a tool.

2.20.7 So listen to us, philosopher—if you really are a philosopher. Believe that the Son of God is not created, rational wisdom, which the Son himself, who created ‘inhabited and uninhabited places,’ gave to humans.

2.20.8 Pay attention, and do not strive for hatred, but for truth. Truth itself will guide you to recognize that the only-begotten Son of God is not a creature but is himself creator and craftsman of all created beings, as you yourself have seen and apprehended to a small degree, and—as I, at least, am confident—will apprehend, if in fact you desire to be saved.”

 

Next Chapter – 2.21 The philosopher’s counter-argument against the Holy Spirit

Previous Chapter – 2.19 The philosopher’s counter-argument

Click here to read the entire ACH account of the Council of Nicaea (2.5-2.38) side-by-side with the Greek text.

Click here to read Book 1 in its entirety.

 

 

Created by RR 7-28-21

No Responses yet