ACC ~ John 10 v35

CHRIST IS GOD BY NATURE

ATHANASIUS: Christ was not man [first], and then became God. Rather, he was [first] God, and then he became man, and that to deify us. [1] When he became man, he was called Son and God, but before he became man, God had called the ancient people sons. In fact, he made Moses a god to Pharaoh, and Scripture says of many, “God stands in the congregation of gods.” [2] Since this is so, it is plain that he is called Son and God later than they are. How then are all things through him, and how is he before everything? Or, how is he “firstborn of the whole creation” [3] if he has others before him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers [4] do not partake of the Word?

This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For there can be no adoption apart from the real Son, who says, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” [5] And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before him? And yet, he says to their brothers the Jews, “If he called them gods, to whom the Word of God came.” And if all who are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son himself is the Word, it is plain that they all exist through him, and he himself is before all. Or rather, he himself is the only true Son, and he alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for his virtue or being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For he is offspring of the Father’s essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable. DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 1.11.39. [6]

[1] See On the Incarnation 54.

[2] Ps 82:1 (81:1 LXX); RSV:“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.”

[3] Col 1:15, see also Oration 2.62.

[4] In this passage Athanasius considers that the participation of the Word is deification, as communion with the Son is adoption. He also implies that the people of the Old Testament, inasmuch as they are called”gods” and”sons,” did partake of the divine Word and Son, or in other words were gifted with the Spirit. He asserts the same doctrine very strongly in Oration 4.22. But in Oration 4:47 he says expressly that Christ received the Spirit in baptism “that he might give it to man.” There is no real contradiction in such statements; what was given in one way under the Law was given in another and fuller way under the gospel.

[5] Mt 11:27.

[6] NPNF 2 4:329**.

MADE “GODS” BY PARTICIPATION IN THE TRUE GOD

AUGUSTINE: If the word of God came to people, that they might be called gods, how can the very Word of God, who is with God, be other than God? If by the word of God people become gods, if by participation they become gods, can he in whom they participate not be God? If lights that are lit are gods, is the light that enlightens not God? If through being warmed in a way by saving fire they are constituted gods, is he who gives them the warmth other than God? You approach the light and are enlightened and numbered among the children of God. If you withdraw from the light, you fall into obscurity and are counted as being in darkness; but that light does not approach because it never recedes from itself. If, then, the word of God makes you gods, how can the Word of God be other than God? TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 48.9. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:269*.