“The Word,” says Athanasius, “when in the beginning He framed the creatures, condescended ([sunkatabebeke]) to them, that it might be possible for them to come into being. For they could not have endured His absolute, untempered nature, and His splendour from the Father, unless, condescending with the Father’s love for man, He had supported them, and taken hold of them, and brought them into substance.” Orat. ii. 64.

This was the first act of His Syncatabasis.

5. It was also the first act of grace, of a gift made to the creation, over and above its own nature, and accompanying that nature from the first:—a divine quality, by which the universe, in the hour of its coming into being, was raised into something higher than a divine work, and was in some sort adopted into a divine family and sonship, so that it was no longer a [geneton] but a [genneton], and that by the entrance, presence, manifestation in it of the Eternal Son.

“By this condescension of the Word,” says Athanasius, “the creation also is made a son through Him ([huiopoieitai he ktisis]).” Ibid.; vid. also Orat. i. 56, and contr. Gent. 42.

6. Thus He who was the Son of God became in a certain sense Son towards the creation for the sake of it and in it. He was born into the universe, as afterwards He was born in Mary, though not by any hypostatic union with it. This birth was not a figure of His eternal generation, but of His incarnation, a sort of prelude and augury of it.

Thus Athanasius speaks of it:—“If,” he says, “the Word of God is in the world, which is a body, and has taken possession of the whole and all its parts, what is wonderful or absurd in our affirming that of man too” (that is, in the Incarnation) “He has taken possession? … for if it becomes Him to enter into the world and to be manifested in the whole of it, also it would become Him to appear in a human body, and to make it the subject of His illumination and action.” De Incarn. V. D. 41.

7. Thus the Only-begotten of the Father imputes his Divine Sonship to the universe, or rather makes the universe partaker of His Divine Fulness, by entering, or being (as it may be called) born into it; not, of course, as if He became a mere Anima Mundi, or put Himself under the laws of creation, but still by a wonderful and adorable descent, so as to be, in spite of His supreme rule, the First-born of his creation and of all that is in it, as He afterwards became the First-born of the predestinate, and as St. Paul says, “is formed in their hearts.” ¹

“The Son is called First-born,” says Athanasius, “not because He ranks with the creation, but in order to signify the framing and adoption of all things through Him ([tes ton panton demiourgias kai huiopoieseos]). Orat. iii. 9.

8. And, as the supernatural adoption of human nature under the gospel involves a real inward sanctification, so the elevation of the universe in the Divine Son includes an impress of His own likeness upon it. He made Himself its Archetype, and stamped upon it the image of His own Wisdom. He gave it order and beauty, life and permanence, and made it reflect His own perfections. As He was the beginning of the creation of God, in respect of time, so was He its first principle or idea in respect to typical order.

“In my substance,” says Athanasius, speaking in the name of Wisdom, “I was with the Father; but, by a condescension ([sunkatabasei])) to things made, I was applying to the works My own impress, so that the whole world, as being in one body, might be, not at variance, but in concord with itself.” Orat. ii. 81.

9. It follows that, while the creation was exalted into sonship, the Son, in exalting it, was lowered. His condescension seemed to make Him one of His own works, though of course the first of them; for the greatest and highest glory of creation was not what it had by nature, but what it had by grace, and this was the reflection and image of Him who created it. Thus, as viewed in that reflection, He was a created wisdom, His real self being confused, so to speak, with the reflection of Him; as now we might speak of a crucifix as “golden,” “silver,” or “ivory,” and as being made, when we are not really speaking of Him who was fixed to the Cross, but of His image.

“The only-begotten and Auto-Wisdom of God,” says Athanasius, “is Creator and Framer of all things; but, in order that what came into being might not only exist, but be good, it pleased God that His own Wisdom should condescend to the creatures, so as to introduce an impress and semblance ([tupon kai phantasian]) of the image of Wisdom on all in common and on each, that the things which were made might be manifestly wise works, and worthy of God; … and, whereas He is not Himself a creature, but the Creator, nevertheless, because of the image of Him created in the works, He says Himself of Himself, ‘The Lord created Me a beginning of His ways for His works.’” Orat. ii. 78.

Thus much Athanasius:—I will corroborate his doctrine by various passages of Augustine, as they occur for the most part in the eighth volume of the Benedictine edition of his works.

He tells us that God created all things by His Word and Only-begotten Son: that in the Word “are all things that are created, even before they are created,” and that “whatever is in Him is life, and a creative life;” that “whatever God was purposed to do, was already in the Word, nor would be in the things themselves, were they not in the Word;” that “all nature is corruptible, and thereby tends to nothing, because it is made out of nothing;” but that “as a speaker utters sounds, which have a meaning from the first, so, while God created the world from unformed matter, He withal created its form together with it;” that “while all nature tends to nothing, as coming out of nothing, it is really good as it comes from Him;” that “its good is threefold, consisting in proportion, beauty, and order;” that “those things which have any beauty are divine gifts;” that “the Word, who is equal to God, is the Art of the Omnipotent Artificer, by whom all things are made, an unchangeable and incorruptible Wisdom, abiding in Itself, changing all things;” that “He is a transcendent, living Art, possessed by the Omnipotent and Wise God, full of all ideas that live and are unchangeable;” that we must distinguish between “the two titles ‘Only-begotten’ and ‘First-born,’ interpreting the former by the words ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ and the latter by the Apostle’s saying that He is ‘First-born among many brothers;’” that, since “they were not such by nature, by believing they received power; that His Son might be Only-begotten with the Father, and First-born towards us;” pp. 81-2, 177, 501-3, 553-5, 850-1, &c.

And this is precisely the doctrine of St. Thomas as regards the “First-born:”—“In quantum solus est verus et naturalis Dei Filius, dicitur unigenitus; in quantum per assimilationem ad ipsum alii dicuntur filii adoptivi, quasi metaphorice dicitur esse primogenitus.” Qu. 41, art. 3 (p. 195, t. 20, ed. 1787). And what is true of the new holds of the original creation.

This doctrine, expounded by St. Athanasius, confirmed by St. Augustine and St. Thomas, is in tone and drift very unlike Arianism, which had no sympathy with the mysticism and poetry of Plato; but it had a direct resemblance to the Semi-Arian edition of the heresy, and, if put forward without its necessary safeguards and corrections, as we find them in those great doctors, was likely to open the way to it. To such instances of true doctrine incautiously worded, and imperfectly explained, I shall now proceed.

Footnotes

1. [Prototokos] is not an exact translation of Primogenitus, though Homer, as Petavius says, may use [tikto] for gigno. It is never used in Scripture for “Only-begotten.” We never read there of the First-born of God, or of the Father; but First-born of the creation, whether the original creation or the new. The Presence of the Son interpenetrates and permeates the world, though in no sense as its soul. Pantheism in natural theology is the error parallel to Monophysitism in revealed. As far as I know, St. Athanasius does not use the comparison, which is found in the creed attributed to him, between the compound nature of man and the mystery of the Incarnation. If our Lord is not fettered by His human nature, when “made flesh,” much less is he subjected to His own universe by becoming, as He has become, its First-born, its Archetype and Life. Athanasius protests against both errors in Incarn. V. D. 17. [ou gar sunededeto toi somati, alla mallon autos ekratei touto, k.t.l.] vid. the whole passage. At the time of writing these grand orations, contra Gent, and de Incarn., Athanasius was not more than twenty-five, perhaps only twenty-one; though they have the luxuriance of youth, yet they are standard works in theology. ↩