Coessential vs. Like-in-Essence Like is not predicated of essence, but of habits, and qualities; for in the case of essences we speak, not of likeness, but of identity. Man, for instance, is said to be like man, not in essence, but according to habit and character; for in essence men are of one nature … Therefore, in speaking of Like according to essence, we mean like by participation; (for Likeness […]
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Athanasius: Against the Arians III
Oneness of the Father and the Son “that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.” (John 17:21) If, for instance, it were possible for us to become as the Son in the Father, the words ought to run, ‘that they may be one in […]
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Jesus became Lord of All by Grace For God is always, and one and the same; but men have come to be afterwards through the Word, when the Father Himself willed it; and God is invisible and inaccessible to originated things, and especially to men upon earth. When then men in infirmity invoke Him, when in persecution they ask help, when under injuries they pray, then the Invisible, being a […]
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Arian argument: “If there never was, when the Son was not, but He is eternal, and coexists with the Father, you call Him no more the Father’s Son, but brother” Answer: For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing origin, that we may account Them brothers, but the Father is the Origin of the Son and begat Him; and the Father is Father, and not born […]
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Athanasius: Life of Antony
Fixity of Purpose Progress in virtue, and retirement from the world for the sake of it, ought not to be measured by time, but by desire and fixity of purpose. He was also mindful of the words spoken by the prophet Elias, ‘the Lord liveth before whose presence I stand to-day.’ For he observed that in saying ‘to-day’ the prophet did not compute the time that had gone by: but […]
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Athanasius: Defence of the Nicene Definition
On Eternal Generation of the Son God is self-existent, enclosing all things, and enclosed by none; within all according to His own goodness and power, yet without all in His proper nature. As then men create not as God creates, as their being is not such as God’s being, so men’s generation is in one way, and the Son is from the Father in another. For the offspring of men […]
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Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word
The Necessity of the God-Man[1] It was in the power of none other to turn the corruptible to incorruption, except the Saviour Himself, that had at the beginning also made all things out of nought; and that none other could create anew the likeness of God’s image for men, save the Image of the Father; and that none other could render the mortal immortal, save our Lord Jesus Christ, Who […]
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