Chapter III.
§1. will be
attempted to give a complete list of his writings in chronological
order; those included in this volume will be marked with an asterisk
and enumerated in this place without remark. The figures prefixed
indicate the probable date.
(1) 318: *Two books ‘contra Gentes,’
viz. c. . and . (2) 321–2: *Depositio Arii (on its authorship, see
Introd.) (3) 328–373: *. (4) 328–335? *Ecthesis or . (5) Id.? *, etc. (6) 339: * ad Episcopos ecclesiæ catholicæ. (7) 343: * (46, 47, in this vol.). (8) 351? *. (9) 352? * Concilii Nicæni, with the * ( 325) as appendix. (10) Id.? *. (11) 350–353? *, (Letter 48). (12) 354: * (Letter 49 in this vol.). (13) 356–362? *. (14) 356: *Epistola ad et Libyæ. (15) 356–7: *. (16) 357: *. (17) 358: * (Letter 54). (18) . *Two Letters (52, 53). (19) 358? * ‘ad monachos.’ (20) Id. * IV. (21) 359? * (Letters 50, 51). (22) Id.? Orationes IV. (Migne xxvi. 529, sqq.). These λόγοι or dogmatic letters are the most important work omitted in the present volume. Serapion of Thmuis, who appears from the silence respecting him in the lists of exiles to have escaped banishment in 356–7, reported to Athanasius the growth of the doctrine that, while the Son was co-essential with the Father, the Spirit was merely a creature superior to Angels. Athanasius replied in a long dogmatic letter, upon receiving which Serapion was begged to induce the author to abridge it for the benefit of the simple. After some hesitation Athanasius sent two more letters, the second drawing out the proofs of the Godhead of the Son, the third restating more concisely the argument of the first. The objections by which these letters were met were replied to in a fourth letter which Athanasius declared to be his last word. The persons combated are not the Macedonians, who only formed a party on this question at a later date, and whose position was not quite that combated in these letters. Athanasius calls them Τροπικοί, or ‘Figurists from the sense in which they understood passages of Scripture which seemed to deify the Holy Spirit. It is not within our compass to summarise the treatises, but it may be noted that Ath. argues that where πνεῦμα is absolute or anarthrous in Scripture it never refers to the Holy Spirit unless the context already supplies such reference (i. 4, sqq.). He meets the objection that the Spirit, if God and of God, must needs be a Son, by falling back upon the language of Scripture as our guide where human analogies fail us. He also presses his opponents with the consequence that they substitute a Dyad for a Trinity. In the fourth letter, at the request of Serapion, he gives an explanation of the words of Christ about . Rejecting the view (Origen, Theognostus) that post-baptismal sin is meant (§§9, sqq.), as favouring Novatianist rigour, he examines the circumstances under which our Lord uttered the warning. The Pharisees refused to regard the Lord as divine when they saw His miracles, but ascribed them to Beelzebub. They blasphemed ‘the Spirit,’ i.e. the Divine Personality of Christ (§19, cf. Lam. iv. 20, LXX.). So far as the words relate to the Holy Spirit, it is not because the Spirit worked through Him (as through a prophet) but because He worked through the Spirit (20). Blasphemy against the Spirit, then, is blasphemy against Christ in its worst form (see also below, ch. iv., §6). It may be noted lastly that he refers to Origen in the same terms of somewhat measured praise (ὁ πολυμαθὴς καὶ φιλόπονος), as in the De Decretis.