The [ Aeigennes ]

 ATHAN., as the other Fathers, insists strongly on the perfection and the immutability of the Divine Being; from which it follows that the birth of the Son must have been from eternity, for, if He exists now, He must have existed ever. "I am the Lord, I change not." It was from dimness and inaccuracy even in orthodox minds, in apprehending this truth, that Arianism arose and had its successes.

 Athan. says, "Never was the substance of the Father incomplete, so that what belonged to it should be added afterwards; on the contrary, whereas it belongs to men to beget in time, from the imperfection of their nature, God's Offspring is eternal, for God's nature is ever perfect." Orat. i. § 14. (Disc. n. 24.) "Though a parent be distinct in time from his son, as being man, who himself has come into being in time, yet he too would have had his child ever co-existent with him except that his nature was a restraint, and made it impossible. Let these say what is to restrain God from being always Father of the Son?" Orat. i. § 26, 27; iv. § 15.

 "Man," says S. Cyril, "inasmuch as he had a beginning of being, also has of necessity a beginning of begetting, as what is from him is a thing generate; but ... if God's substance transcend time, or origin, or interval, His generation also will transcend these; nor does it deprive the Divine Nature of the power of generating, that He doth not generate in time. For other than human is the manner of divine generation; and together with God's existing is His generating implied, and the Son was in Him by generation, nor did His generation precede His existence, but He was always, and that by generation." Thesaur. v. p. 35. vid. also p. 42, and Dialog. ii. fin. This was retorting the objection; the Arians said, "How can God be ever perfect, who added to Himself a Son?" Athan. answers, "How can the Son not be eternal, since God is ever perfect?" vid. Greg. Nyssen. contr. Eunom. Append. p. 142. Cyril. Thesaur. x. p. 78. As to the Son's perfection, Aetius objects, ap. Epiph. Hær. 76, p. 925, 6, that growth and consequent accession from without were essentially involved in the idea of Sonship; whereas S. Greg. Naz. speaks of the Son as not [ atele proteron, eita teleion, hosper nomos tes hemeteras geneseos ]. Orat. 20. 9, fin. In like manner, S. Basil argues against Eunomius, that the Son is [ teleios ], because He is the Image, not as if copied, which is a gradual work, but as a [ charakter ], or impression of a seal, or as the knowledge communicated from master to scholar, which comes to the latter and exists in him perfect, without being lost to the former. contr. Eunom. ii. 16 fin.

 It follows from this perfection and unchangeableness of the Divine Nature, that, if there is in the beginning a gennesis of the Son, it is continual: that is the doctrine of the [ aeigennes ]. Athan. says that there is no [ paula tes genneseos ]. Orat. iv. § 12. Again, "Now man, begotten in time, in time also himself begets the child; and whereas from nothing he came to be, therefore his word also is over and continues not. But God is not as man, as Scripture has said; but is existing and is ever; therefore also His Word is existing and is everlastingly with the Father, as radiance from light." vid. Orat. ii. § 35.

 In other words, by the Divine [ gennesis ] is not meant so much an act, as an eternal and unchangeable fact, in the Divine Essence. Arius, not admitting this, objected at the outset of the controversy to the phrase "always Father, always Son," Theod. Hist. i. 4, p. 749, and Eunomius argues that, "if the Son is co-eternal with the Father, the Father was never a Father in act, [ energos ], but was [ argos ]." Cyril. Thesaur. v. p. 41. S. Cyril answers that it is works, [ erga ], that are made [ exothen ], from without ; but that our Lord is neither a "work" nor "from without." And hence, he says elsewhere, that, while men are fathers first in posse then in act, God is [ dunamei te kai energeiai pater ]. Dial. 2, p. 458. Victorinus in like manner says that God is "potentiâ et actione Deus sed in æternâ," Adv. Ar. i. 33; and he quotes S. Alexander, speaking apparently in answer to Arius, of a "semper generans generatio." And Arius scoffs at [ aeigennes ] and [ agennetogenes ]. Theod. Hist. i. 4, p. 749. And Origen had said, [ ho soter aei gennatai ]. ap. Routh. Reliq. t. 4, p. 304, and S. Dionysius calls Him the Radiance, [ anarchon kai aeigenes ]. Athan. S. D. 15. And Athan., "As the Father is good always and by nature, so is He always generative by nature." Orat. iii. § 66. S. Augustine too says, "Semper gignit Pater, et semper nascitur Filius." Ep. 238, n. 24. Petav. de Trin. ii. 5, n. 7, quotes the following passage from Theodorus Abucara, "Since the Son's generation does but signify His having His existence from the Father, which He has ever, therefore He is ever begotten. For it became Him, who is properly ([ kurios ]) the Son, ever to be deriving His existence from the Father, and not as we who derive its commencement only. In us generation is a way to existence; in the Son of God it denotes the existence itself; in Him it has not existence for its end, but it is itself an end, [ telos ], and is perfect, [ teleion ]." Opusc. 26. Vid. art. Father Almighty .

 Didymus however says, [ ouk eti gennatai ], de Trin. iii. 3, p. 338, but with the intention of maintaining our Lord's perfection and eternity, as Hil. Trin. ii. 20. Naz. Orat. 20. 9 fin. Basil. de Sp. S. n. 20 fin. It is remarkable that Pope Gregory too objects to "Semper nascitur" as implying imperfection, and prefers "Semper natus est." Moral. 29, 1; but this is a question of words. [ Atheos,atheotes ]

 This epithet, in its passive sense, as used by St. Paul, Eph. ii. 12, (not in the sense of disowning or denying God, but of being disowned by Him,) is familiar with the Fathers in their denunciation of heretics and heathen, and with the heathen against Christians and others, who refused to worship their country's gods. Of course the active sense of the word is here and there more or less implied in the passive.

 Thus Athan. says of Arius that "he is on all sides recognised as godless (atheist) Arius," Orat. i. § 4. And of the AnomSan Aetius, "Aetius who was surnamed godless," Syn. § 6. Asterius too he seems to call atheist, including Valentinus and the heathen, Orat. iii. § 64. Eustathius calls the Arians [ anthropous atheous ], who were attempting [ kratesai tou theiou ]. Theod. Hist. i. 7, p. 760. And Arius complains that Alexander had expelled him and his from Alexandria, [ hos anthropous atheous ], ibid. i. 4.

 Since Christ was God, to deny Him was to deny God; but again, whereas the Son had revealed the "unknown God," and destroyed the reign of idols, the denial of the Son was bringing back idolatry and its attendant spiritual ignorance. Thus in the Orat. contr. Gent. § 29 fin., written before the Arian controversy, he speaks of "the Greek idolatry as full of all Atheism" or ungodliness, and contrasts with it the knowledge of "the Guide and Framer of the Universe, the Father's Word," "that through Him we may discern His Father, and the Greeks may know how far they have separated themselves from the truth." And, Orat. ii. § 43, he classes Arians with the Greeks, who, "though they have the name of God in their mouths, incur the charge of Atheism, because they know not the real and true God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ." (vid. also Basil. in Eunom. ii. 22.) Shortly afterwards Athan. gives a further reason for the title, observing that Arianism was worse than previous heresies, such as Manicheism, inasmuch as the latter denied the Incarnation, but Arianism tore from God's substance His connatural Word, and, as far as its words went, infringed the perfections and being of the First Cause. And so ad Ep. Æg. § 17 fin. he says, that it alone, beyond other heresies, "has been bold against the Godhead Itself in a mad way, ([ manikoteron ],) denying that there is a Word, and that the Father was always Father."

 In like manner he says, ad Serap. iii. 2, that if a man says "that the Son is a creature, who is Word and Wisdom, and the Impress, and the Radiance, whom whoso seeth seeth the Father," he falls under the text, "Whoso denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." "Such a one," he continues, "will in no long time say, as the fool, there is no God ." In like, manner he speaks of those who think the Son to be the Spirit, as "without ([ exo ]) the Holy Trinity, and atheists," Serap. iv. 6, "because they do not really believe in the God that is, and there is none other but He." And so again, "As the faith delivered [in the Holy Trinity] is one, and this unites us to God, and he who takes aught from the Trinity, and is baptised in the sole name of the Father or of the Son, or in Father and Son without the Spirit, gains nothing, but remains empty and incomplete, both he and the professed administrator, (for in the Trinity is the perfection,) [initiation,] so whoso divides the Son from the Father, or degrades the Spirit to the creatures, hath neither the Son nor the Father, but is an atheist and worse than an infidel, and anything but a Christian." Serap. i. 30.

 Elsewhere, he speaks more generally, as if Arianism introduced "an Atheism or rather Judaism against the Scriptures, being next door to Heathenism, so that its disciple cannot be even named Christian, for all such tenets are contrary to the Scriptures ;" and he makes this the reason why the Nicene Fathers stopped their ears and condemned it, Ep. Æg. § 13. Moreover, he calls the Arian persecution worse than the pagan cruelties, and therefore "a Babylonian Atheism," Ep. Encycl. § 5, as not allowing the Catholics the use of prayer and baptism, with a reference to Dan. vi. 11, etc. Thus too he calls Constantius atheist, for his treatment of Hosius, [ oute ton theon phobetheis ho atheos ], Hist. Arian. 45; and Nazianzen calls Lucius, on account of his cruelties in Alexandria, "this second Arius, the most copious river of the atheistic fountain." Orat. 25. 11. And Palladius, the Imperial officer, is [ aner atheos ]. ibid. 12.

 Another reason for the title seems to have lain in the idolatrous character of Arian worship on its own showing, viz., as paying divine honours to One whom they yet maintained to be a creature.

 As to other heresies, Eusebius uses the word of the Sabellian, Eccl. Theol. p. 63; of Marcellus, p. 80; of Phantasiasts, p. 64; of Valentinus, p. 114. Basil applies it to Eunomius.

 As to the heathen, Athan. speaks of the [ eidolon atheoteta ], contr. Gent. § 14 and 46 init. Orat. iii. § 67, though elsewhere he contrasts apparently atheism with polytheism, Orat. iii. § 15 and 16. Nazianz. speaks of the [ polytheos atheia ], Orat. 25. 15. vid. also Euseb. Eccl. Theol. p. 73.

 On the other hand, Julian says that Christians preferred "atheism to godliness." vid. Suicer. Thes. in voc. It was a popular imputation upon Christians, as it had been before on philosphers and poets, some of whom better deserved it. On the word as a term of reproach, vid. Voet. Disput. 9, t. 1, pp. 115, etc. 195.