Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

Him who “upholds all things by the word of His power,” 880 and works not by bodily agency,
nor requires the help of hands to form and fashion, but holds in obedient following and
unforced consent the nature of all things that are? So as Judith says, “Thou hast thought,
and what things thou didst determine were ready at hand.” 881 On the other hand, and lest
we should ever be drawn away by the greatness of the works wrought to imagine that the
Lord is without beginning, 882 what saith the Self-Existent? 883 “I live through [by, A.V.] the
Father,” 884 and the power of God; “The Son hath power [can, A.V.] to do nothing of himself.”
885 And the self-complete Wisdom? I received “a commandment what I should say
and what I should speak.” 886 Through all these words He is guiding us to the knowledge
of the Father, and referring our wonder at all that is brought into existence to Him, to the
end that “through Him” we may know the Father. For the Father is not regarded from the
difference of the operations, by the exhibition of a separate and peculiar energy; for whatso-
880 Heb. i. 3.
In how many ways “Through whom” is used; and in what sense “with whom” is…
881 Judith ix. 5 and 6.
882 ἄναρχος. This word is used in two senses by the Fathers. (i) In the sense of ἀΐδιος or eternal, it is applied
(a) to the Trinity in unity. e.g., Quæst. Misc. v. 442 (Migne Ath. iv. 783), attributed to Athanasius, κοινον ἡ
οὐσια· κοινὸν το ἄναρχον. (b) To the Son. e.g., Greg. Naz. Orat. xxix. 490, ἐὰν τὴν ἀπὸ χρόνον νοῇς ἀρχὴν
καὶ ἄναρχος ὁ υἱ& 232·ς, οὐκ ἄρχεται γὰρ ἀπὸ χρόνου ὁ χρόνων δεσπότης. (ii) In the sense of ἀναίτιος,
“causeless,” “originis principio carens,” it is applied to the Father alone, and not to the Son. So Gregory of
Nazianzus, in the oration quoted above, ὁ υἱ& 232·ς, ἐ& 129·ν ὡς αἴτιον τὸν πατέρα λαμβάνῃς, οὐκ ἄναρχος,
“the Son, if you understand the Father as cause, is not without beginning.” ἄρχη γὰρ υἱοῦ πατὴρ ὡς αἴτιος.
“For the Father, as cause, is Beginning of the Son.” But, though the Son in this sense was not ἄναρχος, He was
said to be begotten ἀνάρχως. So Greg. Naz. (Hom. xxxvii. 590) τὸ ἴδιον ὄνομα τοῦ ἀνάρχως γεννηθέντος, υὶ&
231·ς. Cf. the Letter of Alexander of Alexandria to Alexander of Constantinople. Theod. Ecc. Hist. i. 3. τὴν
ἄναρχον αὐτῷ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς γέννησιν ἀνατί θεντας. cf. Hooker, Ecc. Pol. v. 54. “By the gift of eternal gen-
eration Christ hath received of the Father one and in number the self-same substance which the Father hath of
himself unreceived from any other. For every beginning is a father unto that which cometh of it; and every offspring
is a son unto that out of which it groweth. Seeing, therefore, the Father alone is originally that Deity which
Christ originally is not (for Christ is God by being of God, light by issuing out of light), it followeth hereupon
that whatsoever Christ hath common unto him with his heavenly Father, the same of necessity must be given
him, but naturally and eternally given.” So Hillary De Trin. xii. 21. “Ubi auctor eternus est, ibi et nativatis
æternitas est: quia sicut nativitas ab auctore est, ita et ab æterno auctore æterna nativitas est.” And Augustine
De Trin. v. 15, “Naturam præstat filio sine initio generatio.”
883 ἡ αὐτοζωή.
884 John vi. 57.
885 John v. 19.
886 John xii. 49.
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