Against Eunomius 2

CONCERNING THE SON. Having, then, in his discourses about the God of all, laid the groundwork as best he could for his blasphemies against the Son of God, he next let his tongue loose against the Only-begotten God himself.

For what does he say? {Eun.} "And there is one Son,

the Only-begotten. Concerning him it was open to him to set forth the utterances of the saints, by which they proclaim him Son and offspring and thing-made, and so, by the differences of names, to make plain also a difference of essence, and thus be rid of his cares and labors;

but on account of those who suppose the begetting to be bodily, and who stumble over the ambiguity of terms, it is perhaps necessary to speak briefly about these matters as well."

{Bas.} These, then, are Eunomius' words.

But as for me—if one ought to regard the whole discourse as a mere fiction, of the sort that is set before lads in the schools of vanity as an exercise in plausible falsehood (for indeed, just like those exercises, the whole thing resembles shadow-boxing:

a battle against accusers who do not exist;

a defense against a charge that was never brought;

and a speech addressed to judges who are nowhere to be seen)—

if it is in this way that one must listen to these things too, then I myself dismiss the examination, and I counsel everyone to busy himself with none of what has been said.

But if his claim is something greater, and many have come to suspect that there is in him some real concern for the truth, then it is altogether necessary to set right, as far as possible, each of the things he has said.

What manner of examination, then, could be more just than to compare his discourse with the teachings given to us by the Spirit, and to accept whatever we find in harmony with them, but to disbelieve whatever is contrary to them and to flee it as an enemy? First, then, let him show this: which of the saints called Christ "offspring" and "thing-made"? What utterances of the Scriptures does he have to prove it? For if he relies on that saying of the blessed Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles,

where he says:

"Let all the house of Israel know that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified"—

in the first place, the testimony has nothing pertinent to the question at issue.

For having promised to show that the Son was called "thing-made" by the saints, he produces a testimony about God the Father—namely, that he "made."

For surely he would not say this—that in discourses about matters so great he is permitted to devise certain twistings and refashionings of the names.

For if we shall render account even for an idle word on the day of judgment, surely innovating about matters of such magnitude will not be left unaccountable for us.

For perhaps we have been taught by the divine word what may fittingly be said of God the Father;

but what does not suit the Only-begotten, the Holy Spirit has indicated by the very things he passed over in silence.

How, then, is it safe, by reshaping the word "made," to call the Maker of all things a "thing-made"? For if such an appellation befitted him, it would not have been passed over in silence by the Spirit.

But in the case of the creation we have found the appellation "thing-made" derived from "he made";

but in the case of the Son of God, no longer so.

For "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth";

and, "On the things made by your hands did I meditate";

and, "For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things made."

Thus, in cases where the name is fitting, Scripture employs it; but in the case of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as not befitting the majesty of his glory, it passed it over in silence.

And yet now Scripture is not ashamed to call the Lord of glory an "axe," and a "cornerstone," and a "stone of stumbling," and a "rock of offense," and other such things, in which there seems to be little that is of good repute, at least to those who do not penetrate to the meaning of the names;

yet "thing-made" it nowhere at all named him.

And yet this man asserts that he received this name from the saints themselves, in order that by his slanders he might entangle not only those of his own day, but also the saints who lived long ago.

Apart, however, from the fact that one ought not, because of the peril, to venture upon such things, and to refashion the Lord's names on one's own authority—

furthermore, the Apostle's intention does not even set before us the pre-eternal subsistence of the Only-begotten, which is the subject of our present discourse.

For he is not speaking about the essence itself of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, but clearly discoursing about him who emptied himself in the form of a servant, and became conformed to the body of our humiliation, and was crucified out of weakness.

And this is plain to everyone who has paid even a little attention to the intent of the apostolic expression: that he is not handing down to us a mode of theology, but is making clear the words of the economy.

For he says, "God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified," by the demonstrative phrase all but resting his words upon his humanity, which was visible and manifest to all.

But this man transfers the word "he made" to the begetting of the Only-begotten from the beginning.

Nor does even this give him pause: that "Lord" is a name not of essence, but of authority.

So that he who said, "God made him both Lord and Christ," is speaking of the rule and dominion over all things that was entrusted to him by the Father; he is not recounting his coming into being.

These things, then, we shall demonstrate a little later, when we convict him of adducing testimonies from Scripture contrary to the intention of the Spirit;

but for now let us proceed to what follows in the discourse.

What, then, does this name mean for him? And why, pray, does he undertake to call the Maker of all things a "thing-made"? Having deceived himself with a counterfeit sophism, he supposes that, along with the differences of names, a difference of essence too is co-revealed.

And yet who in his right mind would assent to this argument—that of those whose names are different, the essences too must necessarily differ? For of Peter and Paul, and quite simply of all human beings, the appellations are

different, yet the essence of all is one.

Wherefore in most respects we are the same as one another;

but only in the individual properties observed about each one do we differ from one another.

Hence the appellations too are not significative of the essences, but of the properties that characterize each individual.

Whenever, then, we hear "Peter," we do not from the name conceive of his essence (and by "essence" I now mean the material substrate, which the name in no way signifies), but we have stamped upon our minds the notion of the properties observed about him.

For at once, from this word, we conceive of the son of Jonah, the man from Bethsaida, the brother of Andrew, the one called from among fishermen to the ministry of apostleship, the one who, for the excellence of his faith, received upon himself the building up of the Church;

none of which is essence, in the sense in which subsistence is understood.

So that the name defines for us the distinctive character of Peter;

but nowhere does it set forth the essence itself.

Again, on hearing "Paul," we understood a concurrence of other properties:

the man of Tarsus, the Hebrew, the Pharisee according to the law, the disciple of Gamaliel, the persecutor of the Churches of God out of zeal, the one led into knowledge by the fearful vision, the apostle of the nations.

For all these are circumscribed by the single name "Paul."

And yet, if it were true that those whose names differ have essences contrary to one another, then surely Paul and Peter and quite simply all human beings would have to be of different essence from one another.

But since no one is so unlearned and so unobservant of the common nature as to be brought to say this—

for it says, "For out of clay you too were fashioned, as was I"—

the saying signifying nothing other than the consubstantiality of all human beings;

false, therefore, is he who sophistically argues that a difference of essence follows upon a difference of names.

For it is not the case that the nature of things follows upon the names, but rather the names were devised later than the things.

For if this were true, then it would be necessary that those whose appellations are the same should also be one and the same essence.

Therefore, since those who are perfect in virtue have been deemed worthy of the appellation of "God," human beings would be consubstantial with the God of all.

But just as to say this is manifest madness, so too that other argument is gripped by an equal derangement.

It is plain, then, from what has been said, that even in the case of Father and Son the names do not set forth essence, but are indicative of the properties;

so that there is no room at all for the argument that introduces a contrariety of essences from the difference of names.

And in this way he would, before all others, throw down his own position.

For if "thing-made" and "offspring" differ, then the essences of the Only-begotten will be different, following upon the difference of names.

But if to say this belongs to men out of their senses, neither does that other view belong to men in their right minds.

Yet he both pretends to have countless demonstrations that the Son was called "thing-made" by the saints;

and, as though hastening on to certain other and more pressing matters, he forsooth defers for the present the mention of them.

And this too is an artful piece of mischief: in matters where he is at a loss for arguments, to prefer silence.

For if he had even the shadow of a testimony calling the Only-begotten a "thing-made," our ears would by now have been deafened, dinned about with it.

Then he says that, on account of those who suppose the begetting of the Lord to be bodily, and who stumble over ambiguous terms, it is necessary for him to speak briefly about these matters too.

And yet what hindered him from first confirming his own argument by testimonies from the Scriptures, and so coming to the correction of the weaker, and assuaging the harm arising from ambiguity, if indeed such harm has ever come, or will come, to any? For who is so utterly carnal in his thinking, and so inexperienced in divine words, that, hearing of a divine begetting, he is carried down to bodily fancies—in which there is the union of male with female, conception in the womb, the molding and shaping, and the coming forth at the appointed times? Who is so brutish that, hearing that God the Word came forth from God, and hearing that Wisdom was begotten of God, he sinks down in his reasonings to the

passions of the body? But this too, along with the rest, has been devised by him as a specious figure of speech, that he may seem, for the sake of his compassion toward the foolish among the brethren, to take upon himself the labor of teaching.

And the bodily suppositions that arise upon this appellation he forsooth sets right;

but the harms arising from the Lord's being named a "thing-made" he does not deprecate.

And yet he who fancies the begetting to be bodily, the same man would also be carried down to the material modes of making.

For surely the weak-minded man will not, from the word "to beget," conceive of some partition and transference and flowing-out of the essence of the begetter;

yet not be led to suppose that matter from outside, brought in out of non-being into the subsistence of the "thing-made" (as you say), is what is involved.

For what reason, then, does he heal the ailments of the brethren's reasonings only by halves, and, while caring for those who suppose the begetting to be bodily, overlook those who stumble at the appellation of "thing-made"? Because he knows that being begotten is hostile to his own doctrines—since the begotten must in every respect be intimately and unalterably related to the one who begot;

but that being made is a friend and ally to his own hypotheses, because it presents the notion of something foreign and alien and wholly unrelated to the one who made it.

Then to these things he adds, saying:

{Eun.} "We say, then, that the Son is an offspring, according to the teaching of the Scriptures;

not conceiving the essence to be one thing and the thing signified to be something else beside it, but holding that the very subsistence which the name signifies is itself [the essence], the appellation being true to the essence."

{Bas.} In these statements, then, he manifestly fights against the truth, yet nevertheless speaks consistently with himself.

For just as in the foregoing discourses he was defining "unbegotten" to be significative of the essence of the God of all, so here too he says that "offspring" signifies the essence of the Son;

in order that, in the opposition of the begotten to the unbegotten, he may show the Only-begotten to be contrary to the Father in respect of essence itself.

For these reasons he lays down as law words that are outside the usage of the divine Spirit, naming the Son an "offspring."

Where did he get it? From what teaching? From what prophet? From which of the apostles who attached this designation to him? For I, for my part, have found this expression nowhere so laid down in Scripture.

And yet this man boasts that he has taken these appellations from no other source than the teaching of the Spirit.

For it is a small contest for him to provide men, if he were not also to make bold against the Spirit himself.

For that the Father has begotten, we have been taught in many places;

but that the Son is an "offspring" we have not even to this day heard;

for it says, "For unto us a child has been born";

and his name is called not "offspring," but "Angel of Great Counsel."

And yet, if "offspring" were significative of essence, we would not have been taught by the Spirit any name other than that which was destined manifestly to set forth his essence.

And again Peter—he who, for his knowledge of the truth, was deemed worthy of those beatitudes—did not say, "You are the offspring";

but, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

And Paul, who filled all his writing with the appellation of "Son," will nowhere be found to have made mention of "offspring";

which this man, out of great confidence, brings forward as though he had taken it from the divine school.

For neither here is it to be conceded to him, that, reshaping and refashioning the word "he begot," which is applied to the Father, he should call the Son of God an "offspring."

For it does not befit one schooled in the divine fear to leap lightly upon whatever may be suggested by the sequence of words; but rather to be content, abiding in the names laid down in Scripture, and through these to fulfill the doxology in a manner worthy of God.

For if those who originally translated the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language did not dare to interpret certain names, but transferred the very Hebrew word over—

[the very Hebrew word] they brought over;

such as "Sabaoth," and "Adonai," and "Eloi," and any such thing, displaying this reverence not only with regard to the divine names, but also with regard to many others;

how great, then, ought our fear to be concerning the names of the Lord? Indeed, when would those men ever have endured to fashion any of the names on their own authority, seeing that they did not even venture upon the interpretation of certain names, lest they should dissolve the vividness of the meaning by an unsuitable rendering of what is signified? "But if," he says, "God begot, how is it not necessary to call the begotten an 'offspring'?" Because it is fearful for us to address by our own names him to whom God granted the name that is above every name.

For it says, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you."

And yet, according to their argument, it would have been more consistent, because of his having been begotten, for him to be called "offspring," and not "Son";

Wherefore he who has before his eyes the judgment-seat of Christ, and who knows how great is the peril of taking away anything from, or adding anything to, what has been handed down by the Spirit, must not, of his own ambition, make innovations, but must rest quiet in the things proclaimed of old by the saints.

That, then, which neither common usage nor the usage of the Scriptures has admitted—how is it not the utmost folly to venture upon it? For what father or mother, kindly and gently disposed toward the one born of them, would, forsaking the addressing of him as "son" or "child," call him an "offspring"? For it says, "Child, go into the vineyard";

"God will provide for himself a sheep for the slaughter, my child";

"Who are you, my child?"; and, "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord";

and, "A wise son makes a father glad";

but nowhere is anyone shown to have called the one born of him an "offspring,"

because "son" and "child" are names of living beings, but "offspring" by no means always so.

For even that which is cast out in miscarriages, before it has been fully formed, can be called an "offspring";

yet such a thing is not worthy of the appellation "child."

And the fruits of the earth are "offspring" (produce), but these are no longer "children."

For it says, "I will not drink of the produce of this vine."

And we have found this appellation but rarely applied to living beings.

And wherever it has been used, it is to be seen applied to an animal that is being denounced and taken up as an image of wickedness.

For it says, "Serpents, brood (offspring) of vipers."

For this reason, I think, common usage has held this appellation in dishonor, and the divine Scripture is seen to shun it, and most of all in the case of the only-begotten Son of God.

But even the appellation "child" it did not admit, as having too much of the human about it.

And the Apostle makes this plain, calling the Lord "Son" up and down, and hymning him by various other appellations—"firstborn," and "image," and "effulgence";

but the appellation "offspring" he avoided.

But if this man, or any other of the champions of the doctrine, can point it out, then we will grant them leave to erase everything;

unless, indeed, imitating the impious Marcion, he would excise some of the divine oracles, and interpolate others.

In this way, then, the word "offspring" has been refuted as foreign both to common usage and to the usage of the Scriptures.

But let us now see whether it is possible for this name to be ranged against the very essence of the Son.

{Eun.} "It is impossible to conceive the essence to be one thing and the thing signified to be something else beside it, but [it is necessary to hold] that the very subsistence which the name signifies is itself [the essence], the appellation being true to the essence."

{Bas.} Worthy indeed, in truth, of the judges whom you have invented, are these dogmas of yours.

For as though in a market of dreams, or in an assembly of drunken men, with no one either hearing or comprehending what is said, you legislate with great impunity, supposing that, in place of any demonstration, it suffices that you yourself have said it.

Since who does not know that, of names, some, uttered absolutely and by themselves, are significative of the things underlying them, while others, said in relation

to other things, make plain only the relation to those things in relation to which they are said? For instance, "man," and "horse," and "ox" each presents the very thing named;

but "son," or "slave," or "friend" are indicative only of the connection with the name to which they are conjoined.

He, therefore, who hears "offspring" is not borne in his mind to some essence, but understands that it is joined to something else.

For the offspring is said to be the offspring of someone.

That, however, which does not produce the notion of any subsistence, but signifies only the relation to another—to legislate that this is essence, how is it not the height of derangement? And yet a little earlier it was demonstrated by us that even the absolute names, however much they may seem to make plain some underlying thing, do not set forth the essence itself, but define certain properties about it.

But this most wise man, who has spent his whole life in vain artifices, does not blush to say that "offspring" signifies the very essence of the Only-begotten.

But consider how great an absurdity this involves.

For if the essence is offspring, and conversely, if whatever is offspring is essence;

then all offspring will be consubstantial with one another.

From this, then, what will follow, according to this man's argument? The Creator of all things will be shown to have the same essence as all those who partake of begetting.

For surely he will not say that in the case of the Son "offspring" signifies essence, but in the case of the rest that partake of generation it no longer preserves the same meaning.

Otherwise, let him state some clear and irrefutable reason why the same appellation does not have the same force equally in all cases.

For whatever account of "offspring" he may devise, that account will fit equally all begotten things.

And the greatest proof of the truth of the argument is the very understanding of each one of the hearers.

For let each one ask himself, whenever he hears, "So-and-so is the offspring of So-and-so," what notion is stamped upon him.

Is it that the begotten is the essence of the one who begot? Or is this ridiculous, while the truth is that he was brought into being from him by way of begetting?

This, then, will be fitting to be said alike in the case of the Only-begotten and in the case of any whatsoever of the begotten.

And let no one (because the matter of relation is common) suppose this to be a debasement of the dignity of the Only-begotten.

For it is not in the matter of standing in some relation that the difference belongs to the Son over against the rest, but it is in the propriety of essence that the surpassing excellence of God over against mortal things shines forth.

Consider, however, to what absurdity this man's argument carries.

If the offspring is said to be the offspring of another, as both common usage confirms and no one will gainsay, and yet this same thing also, in the case of the Son, signifies essence, according to their argument—

then it will be the essence of that one whose offspring it is also said to be.

There will result, then, from this sequence, that the appellation "offspring" no longer signifies the essence of the Only-begotten—which is what these men strain to maintain—but rather the essence of the God of all.

For if it is not possible to conceive the essence to be one thing and the offspring to be something else beside it, and "essence" and "offspring" have equal force,

and the Son is the offspring of God, then it will be the essence of God, if indeed "offspring" makes plain the essence.

And in this way the "offspring" will be shown, according to this man's argument, to be the essence of the Unbegotten.

But if what is gathered is ridiculous, let him who laid down the premises inherit the shame.

For an argument seems, somehow, once it has been carried aside from the truth, to be borne off, by the consequence that attends upon error, into many perilous absurdities.

These things, then, are as it were certain preliminary skirmishes and preparations for the blasphemy;

but the chief point of the mischief he brings on in what follows, saying:

{Eun.} "The essence of the Son was begotten, not being before its own constitution, but, having been begotten, existing before all things by the will of the Father."

{Bas.} He still clings to the same contrivances.

He discourses to us about the essence of the Son, as though saying something other beside the Son himself, and in this way he gently tames our hearing to the blasphemy;

not openly saying that the Son was begotten out of non-beings, but that his essence was begotten, not being [before].

Before what was it not? Tell me.

What a sophism! He compares it to itself, so that what he says may seem to all to be tolerable—saying that it was not before the ages, nor simply that it was not, but [that it was not] before its own constitution.

But the essence of the Father, tell me, do you assert it to be older than its own constitution? For if, on the one hand, he does not subject the essence of the Son to times, nor according to this argument conceive any "before," then his argument is vain and idle for him, and on that very account not even worthy of an answer.

Nevertheless, it will hold no less in the case of the God of all, for those who wish to transfer the vanity.

For to say that God was not before his own constitution, and to say that he was before himself, belong to the same folly.

But if he takes the "before" temporally in the case of the essence of the Son, then he will say that his essence—or rather the Son himself—was begotten out of non-beings;

for it makes no difference at all, with respect to the very meaning, to say it in this way or in that;

first, he posits a time [or times] as second, and, if you will, ages too, as second to the Maker of the ages;

then, following upon his own blasphemies, he will say that the Father too was not Father from the beginning, but afterwards came to be such.

And yet, if it is good and befitting to the blessedness of God to be Father, how was that which befits him not present from the beginning? For they will surely attribute the deficiency either to ignorance of the better, or to inability:

to ignorance, if he discovered the better only later; to inability, if, though knowing and understanding, he failed to attain the best.

But if (which it is not lawful to say) it is not good for him to be Father, for what reason did he, by way of change, choose the worse? But let the blasphemy turn back upon its authors;

the God of all is Father from infinity, never having begun to be Father.

For neither was he hindered by any lack of power from accomplishing his will, nor did he wait for the revolution of certain ages, so that—just as in the case of human beings and the rest of the animals, after the completion of their age, when the power to beget had come to them—he might thus attain what he sought (for to conceive and to utter these things belongs to madmen), but he has, coextensive with his own eternity, (if I may so name it) fatherhood.

Therefore the Son too, being before the ages and being always, did not at some time begin to be; but from the time that there is a Father, there is also a Son, and immediately, together with the notion of the Father, the notion of the Son enters in.

For the Father is plainly the Father of a Son.

Of the Father, then, there is no beginning, but the beginning of the Son is the Father;

How, then, was he not from the beginning (for this is what is meant by their sophistical phrase "before his own constitution")—he who has nothing conceived as prior to himself, except the one from whom he has being, who is set before him not by an interval of priority, but ranked first by reason of causation? If, then, the Son's fellowship with God and Father has been shown to be eternal, our mind passing from the Son to the Father through nothing empty, but conjoining the Son to the Father without any interval, then he who is bounded by no intervening medium—what avenue of entry does he yet leave to the wicked blasphemy of those who say that he was brought from non-being into being? And then, moreover, it is worthwhile to marvel at their senselessness, in that they do not understand that, in saying the Son is from non-beings, they declare him younger not only than the Father, but also than that by which they divide off the Only-begotten from the Father.

For it is necessary, if there were anything between Father and Son, that this be older than the existence of the Son.

What, then, could this be? What else but an age, surely, or time? For he who conceives the Father's life to be more abundant than that of the Only-begotten—by what else would he measure it, that he might say he had found the surplus, if not by an interval of certain ages or times? But if this is true, then false is the Scripture which says that the ages came to be through him, and which teaches that all things came to be through him;

the ages, manifestly, being included among all things.

But if they shall say that they do not deny that the Son was begotten before the ages, let them not fail to notice that what they concede in word, they take away in truth.

For let us ask those very men who bring the essence of the Only-begotten out of non-beings:

as you say, what was that interval? What appellation will you devise for it? For common usage subjects every interval either to times or to ages;

since what time is among sensible things, that the nature of the age is among supramundane things.

But if these men conceive some third thing out of their own wisdom, let them say it.

But so long as they keep silent, let them not fail to notice that they are positing the essence of the Only-begotten as second to the ages.

For if there were some interval older than the Son, coextensive with the life of the Father, it was plainly one of these two things.

But neither is there, nor can there come to be, any notion older than the subsistence of the Only-begotten.

For above everything that can be conceived in terms of antiquity, the existence of God the Word, who was in the beginning with God, will be found to be higher.

And even if the mind, deceiving itself with countless fancies, and casting itself upon fabrications of things that have no existence, should imagine the things that are not, it will discover no contrivance among them all whereby it shall be able to set itself above the beginning of the Only-begotten;

and to leave life lower than its own motion—lower, that is, than Life-itself;

and to surpass with its own reasoning the beginning of God the Word;

and to survey ages that are bereft of the God of the ages.

But as he robs the Only-begotten of the glory that is owed him, consider with what arguments he extols him.

{Eun.} "The essence of the Son," he says, "is one that was begotten before all things, by the will of God and the Father."

{Bas.} This great thing he adds to the Son: that he is older than the creation, and that he pre-exists his own things-made—reckoning it sufficient for the glory of the Creator of all that he was ranked before his own creatures.

For having alienated from him whatever pertains to his fellowship with God and Father, he bears witness to his glory in his being preferred over the creatures.

Then, carrying the blasphemy to the point of shamelessness, he hems us in, as he supposes, with the inescapable necessities of his reasonings.

{Eun.} "For God," he says, "begot the Son either when he was, or when he was not."

"But if when he was not, let no one charge me with audacity;

but if when he was, then the argument involves not only absurdity and blasphemy, but also the height of all silliness;

for what already is has no need of begetting."

{Bas.} Now then, the much-bruited sophism—long ago discovered by others, but now brought to full completion in the brazen and shameless tongues of these men—is this.

But we will first remind our hearers of this: that this is the man who, on account of the ignorance of the many who hear of the Son's begetting in a human manner, came into the necessity of these very arguments;

this is the man who leads up the untaught souls from bodily notions to spiritual contemplation;

who, since the animals that are begotten did not exist before, and then are begotten, and he who is begotten today did not exist yesterday, transfers this notion also to the subsistence of the Only-begotten.

And, since he has been begotten, he says, he did not exist before the begetting.

So magnificently does he expound to us the begetting of the Only-begotten in theological terms, and by such arguments does he set right the ailments of our brethren—being worthy, if anyone is, to hear the proverb, "Physician, heal yourself."

And what consolation, indeed, for this absurd sickness of his reasonings, shall we bring him, other than the things spoken to us by the Holy Spirit through the blessed John: that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"? By these two clauses the evangelist shut him out: the one not to be overpassed, the other not to be evaded.

For neither is it possible to conceive anything older than the beginning;

for it would no longer be a beginning, if it had anything outside itself;

nor is it possible, having passed over the "was" in one's reasoning, to peer beyond it into the "when he was not."

For the notion of "when he was not" is a denial of the "was."

For if the "beginning" were of those things said in relation to another—as in "the beginning of wisdom," and "the beginning of a good way," and "In the beginning God made"—then perhaps it would be possible for those who subsist from such a beginning to overpass the begetting by thought;

but since this meaning of "beginning"

absolute and unrelated, makes plain the highest nature, how is he not ridiculous who conceives things outside it, or undertakes to overpass it with his reasonings? And the "was" is coextensive with the unsurpassable character of this beginning.

For the "was" does not suggest existence beginning from time, as in "There was a man in the land of Uz";

and, "There was a man from Armathaim";

and, "And the earth was invisible";

but the evangelist himself, in another passage, showed us the meaning of such a "was," saying:

"He who is, and who was, and the Almighty."

For such as is the "is," so too is the "was"—eternal alike and timeless.

But to say that he who was in the beginning was not, belongs neither to one who preserves the notion of the beginning, nor to one who joins to it the existence of the Only-begotten.

For inconceivable is anything older than the beginning, and inseparable from it is the being of God the Word.

So that, however far you wish to run back with the busy meddlings of your mind, you will be unable to overpass the "was," and to get outside it with your reasonings.

Let the counter-question, then, be put by us as well:

was God the Word in the beginning with God, or did he come to be later? For if he was, "Cease your tongue from evil"—from the blasphemy of "when he was not";

but if (which it is not even lawful to say)—I will use words more proper to you, against you—then the argument involves not only blasphemy, but also the height of derangement: to demand of men an accounting for the words of the Spirit, and to confess oneself a disciple of the Gospels, yet to rise up in revolt against these very Gospels.

For consider the divine utterances, how exactly and clearly they testify to the generation of the Son before the ages.

For since Matthew became the expounder of the generation according to the flesh, as he himself says:

"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David";

while Mark made the preaching of John the beginning of the Gospel, saying:

"The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

A voice of one crying in the wilderness";

and while Luke also, for his part, approached the theology through bodily beginnings;

necessarily the evangelist John, coming last to the writing, having lifted his mind above every sensible thing, and above the time that attends upon such things—or rather, being lifted up by the power of the Spirit—approached him who is beyond all things, all but solemnly attesting, even himself, that, even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so.

For having laid hold of the very beginning, and having left all bodily and temporal notions lower than his own theology, he outsang the preceding proclamations by the loftiness of his knowledge.

"Not from Mary," he says, "is the beginning, nor from these times here."

But what then? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God";

the existence from eternity, the impassible begetting, the connaturality with the Father, the majesty of the nature—all of these he comprehended in those few words, and, by the addition of the "was," led them up to the beginning, as it were stopping the mouths of those who blaspheme with "when he was not," and cutting off from afar the inroads of such men's sophisms.

Then, through this theology, having stamped, as it were, a vivid sketch of the nature of the Only-begotten, he points it out, as to those who already recognize it, in the words, saying:

"This one was in the beginning with God";

here again, by the addition of the "was," joining the begetting of the Only-begotten to the eternity of the Father;

"There was life, and the life was the light of men, and the true light was."

But nevertheless, though the argument was thus secured on all sides by the additions of the "eternal," he, thrusting aside all the testimonies of the Spirit, and not even seeming to hear it crying out to us so insistently with the "was," says, "Not being, he was begotten."

Therefore he was afterwards added by begetting.

But if this was not in the beginning, as you say, what more manifest conflict could one display against the utterances of the Gospels in which we have believed? And indeed, to which of fair-minded men would not this too seem fitting: that, just as the eye, when it has fallen out of the places that are illuminated, necessarily stands idle through the lack of the

light, idle in its activity—so too the mind, when by its fancies it forces itself out beyond that which is, as though the light of truth were failing it, is confounded and made senseless, and ceases from understanding? Neither, then, could the eye, outside the light, be able to use the act of seeing, nor the soul, when it has been carried aside from the notion of the Only-begotten, be able to make use of understanding.

For the falling away from the truth is a blindness and darkening of the understanding.

So that vain is the mind, and blinded, in truth knowing nothing, which fancies that it has apprehended the things older than the Only-begotten;

just as if one were to attest sharp-sightedness to an eye that strains to gaze at things shrouded in darkness.

For "in your light," it says, "shall we see light."

But he who asserts that he has apprehended the "when the light was not yet," has suffered something like those who, in frenzied derangement, fancy that they see things that are not present.

For the things above the Son are not [objects of] thought.

Since whatever the sensible light is to the eye, that God the Word is to the soul.

For it says, "There was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world."

So that an unenlightened soul is incapable of understanding.

How, then, could the things above the generation of the light be apprehended? But it were fitting, I think, for those who have taken even a little thought for the truth, abandoning bodily likenesses, and the defiling of their notions about God with material fancies, to follow the theologies handed down to us by the Holy Spirit, and, instead of these questions—which fall nothing short of riddles, having a perilous supposition either way—to conceive a begetting worthy of God: impassible, undivided, indivisible, timeless, being led to the divine begetting in accordance with the radiance that beams forth from the light;

and to conceive an image of the invisible God: not like these artificial ones, wrought out afterwards toward an archetype, but coexisting and subsisting alongside the prototype which gave it subsistence—being, by the very being of the archetype, not fashioned by imitation, as though the whole nature of the Father had been imprinted, as in a seal, upon the Son.

Or, if you will, [consider] of what sort is the subsistence of the arts, which, passing whole from the teachers into the learners, comes to be in them;

neither anything being lacking to the teachers, while perfection accrues to the learners.

Or rather this is not exact for the comparison, on account of the protraction of time.

But it is more proper to say that [consider] of what sort is the nature of thoughts, subsisting timelessly together with the motions of the mind.

And let no one calumniate the argument, if some of the illustrations do not in every respect agree with the things set forth.

For neither is it possible for small and paltry things to fit with exactness to things divine and eternal, but [they serve] only so far as to refute the dissembling of those who are unable to grasp an impassible begetting with their understanding.

And the Son both has been called and is a begotten "image," and is the "effulgence of the glory of God," and "wisdom," and "power," and "righteousness of God"—not as a habit, nor as an aptitude, but as a living and active essence, and is the effulgence of the glory of God.

Wherefore he also shows the Father whole in himself, being made to shine forth out of the whole of his glory.

To say, then, that the glory of God does not have effulgence, or that the wisdom of God was at some time not present with God—of what extreme of absurdity [is this not full]? "But if he was," he says, "he has not been begotten."

Let us answer, then, that: Since he has been begotten, he was;

having his being not as unbegotten, but being always and being together with the Father, from whom he has also the cause of his existence.

When, then, was he brought into being by the Father? From the time that the Father is. "But the Father is from eternity," he says;

from eternity, then, is the Son also, being joined by begetting to the unbegottenness of the Father.

And that this is not our own argument, we will furnish them the very utterances of the Holy Spirit.

From the Gospel, then, let us take the "In the beginning was the Word";

and from the Psalm, that which is spoken as it were in the person of the Father: "From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten you";

and putting both together, let us say that he both was and has been begotten.

But the "I have begotten" signifies the cause from which he has the beginning of being;

his timeless and pre-eternal existence.

But he, contending on behalf of his own deception, supposes that he is leading the argument to an absurdity.

{Eun.} "For if," he says, "the Son was before his own begetting, he was unbegotten."

{Bas.} But this "before the begetting," O foolish man, is either utterly nonexistent, and a fabrication of a mind resting upon no underlying object;

and what need is there to gainsay the senseless? For this is much the same as if we were doing battle with one whose reasoning has been carried aside by frenzy;

or else, if it is borne toward some one of the things that are, it will also be borne toward the notion of the ages.

But if indeed all the ages are conceived to be somewhere below the generation of the Only-begotten, being themselves things-made of that very one, then vain is he who seeks the things older than the subsistence of the Son.

For he asks nothing different than if he were inquiring also concerning the Father, whether he existed before his own constitution, or not.

For just as there it is senseless, the question—to seek what is higher in the case of the unoriginate and unbegotten—

so too here, in the case of him who is from eternity together with the Father, and who has nothing intermediate between himself and the one who begot him, to put temporal questions about a "prior" is of truly equal senselessness.

For it is much the same to ask what will be after the end of the immortal, and to inquire what existed before the begetting of the eternal.

But these men, since the unoriginateness of the Father is named "eternal," declare the "eternal" to be the same as the "unoriginate," and, since the Son is not unbegotten, they refuse to confess that he is eternal either.

But these differ greatly in meaning…

For that is called 'unbegotten' which has no beginning of itself, nor any cause of its being;

while 'everlasting' is that which is older, as to being, than all time and every age.

Whence the Son also is everlasting, though not unbegotten.

Now some even think the ages worthy of the appellation 'everlasting,' as having obtained this name from their always existing.

But we reckon it to be the same madness both to ascribe everlastingness to creation and to deprive the Lord of creation of this confession.

But he, pushing his argument to the point of shamelessness, what does he say? [EUN.] But we, abiding by what has been demonstrated by the saints both of old and in our own day, since the essence of God does not admit of begetting, nor is there any other subject underlying for the begetting of the Son, say that the Son, when He was not, was begotten.

[BAS.] Who is so zealous for piety? Who has prided himself so on being a lover of Christ, as these men exult in words of insult and dishonor, words destructive of the glory of the Only-begotten? Will you not cease, O godless one, to call 'non-existent' Him who truly exists, the fountain of life, who imparts being to all that exist — He who, in His oracle to His own servant Moses, devised for Himself an appellation proper to Himself and befitting His own eternity, naming Himself 'the Existing One'? For He says, 'I am He who is.'

And no one will contradict that these words were spoken in the person of the Lord;

none, at least, who does not have the Jewish veil lying upon his own heart at the reading of Moses.

For it is written that the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in the bush.

Thus, having set 'angel' at the head of the narrative, the Scripture then brings in the voice of God.

For He said, it says, to Moses:

'I am the God of your father Abraham.'

Who, then, is the same both angel and God? Is it not He of whom we have learned that His name is called 'Angel of great counsel'? I, for my part, do not think more is needed for the proof; rather, for those who love Christ even the reminder suffices, while to those who are incurably disposed no benefit will come from the multitude of arguments.

For even if He later became the Angel of great counsel, yet neither beforehand did He disdain the appellation of angel.

For not here only shall we find our Lord named both angel and God by the Scripture;

but also Jacob, recounting the vision to his wives, says:

'And the angel of God said to me';

and a little after, from the same one:

'I am the God who appeared to you in the place where you anointed a pillar to Me there.'

And yet there, at the pillar, it was said to Jacob: