Against Eunomius 1 part 10/56

But if He were joined by will alone while being divided according to nature, how could He testify to His own unity with the Father, when He was severed in that which is most fundamental? Hearing, then, that 'I and the Father are one,' we were taught by this utterance both that the Lord is from a cause and that the Son is unvarying with respect to the Father according to nature; yet we do not blend the notion concerning them into a single hypostasis, but rather we preserve the distinct property of the hypostases, while not dividing along with the persons the unity of the essence, lest two things of different kind should be supposed within the account of the first principle, and thereby the doctrine of the Manichaeans should find an entrance.

For the created and the uncreated hold, in their very signification, a diametrical opposition to one another.

If, then, the two should be ranked among first principles, Manichaeism will imperceptibly be smuggled into the Church of God to its ruin.

I say these things out of zeal, examining the argument of my opponents somewhat more scrupulously.

And perhaps no one would object that the reasoning is not brought near to what is probable: namely, that since the created is capable, on equal terms with the uncreated, that which is of a different kind by nature will somehow stand opposed to that which is not similarly constituted in its essence; and so long as the power fails in neither of them, the two will be driven into some discordant standoff against one another.

For it is altogether necessary to acknowledge that the purpose is also corresponding to and proper to the nature; and if they were dissimilar according to nature, their wills too would be dissimilar.

But since the power is sufficient in each of them, neither will be too weak to fulfill its own will.

...it will be established, since by the unfailing sufficiency of its power it advances against its adversary.

And thus the doctrine of the Manichaeans will insinuate itself, since two things mutually opposed have appeared over against each other in the account of the first principle, being cleft asunder toward what is contrary by the divergence of nature and of purpose.

And thus their construction of a diminution becomes for them the beginning of the Manichaean doctrines.

For the discordance of essence casts the doctrine round into two first principles, as the argument has shown, divided between the created and the uncreated.

But perhaps most people will find fault with these arguments as having a forced construction of the absurdity, and will not deem them worthy of being written down at all alongside the rest.

For it was not of our own impulse, but because of our adversaries, that we were led to cast the argument into such minute investigation, departing from the natural sequence.

And if these things ought not to be said, then all the more ought the argument of our opponents to be passed over in silence—that argument which supplies the occasions for such a rejoinder.

For there is no other way for one who contradicts the wicked to hold them in check, unless he first removes the very premise of the counter-argument.

Nevertheless, I would gladly counsel those so disposed to step a little outside of contentiousness, and not too passionately to champion their own preconceptions, by which they happen already to be forestalled, nor to seek from every quarter how they might gain the advantage over their opponents; but, as though the race were run for their very soul, to be persuaded only by what is expedient, and to grant the prize of victory to the truth.

If, then, someone withdrawing from contentiousness should examine the argument by itself, he will not find it difficult to discover the absurdity manifested in the doctrine.

For let us suppose it granted, according to the argument of our opponents, that ungeneracy is an essence, and again likewise that generation is taken up into an essence.

Accordingly, if one should follow accurately in thought what is being said, the Manichaean doctrine will be refashioned for them by this road, seeing that the Manichaeans seem to lay down as doctrine the opposition, according to contrariety of nature, of evil to good and of light to darkness and of all such things.

And that I speak the truth in these matters, I think one who does not carelessly run past the argument will readily concur.

In each of the subjects there are altogether observed certain connatural distinguishing marks, through which the distinctive character of the underlying nature is recognized—whether you examine the argument in the difference of animals or in that of all other things.

For wood and animal are not characterized by the same marks, nor among animals do the distinguishing signs of man share in common with the irrational nature, nor again do the same things indicate both life and death; but in all cases without exception, as has been said, the distinction of the subjects is something unmixed and incommunicable, in no way confounded through any communion in the marks that are observed of them.

According, then, to this sequence, let the argument of our opponents be examined.

They say that ungeneracy is an essence, and they likewise reduce generation to an essence.

But just as the distinguishing marks of a man and of a stone are different and not the same (for you would not give the same definition of each, of the animate and the inanimate, in determining what it is), so surely they will grant that the ungenerate is recognized by some marks, and the generate by others.

Let us then consider the distinctive properties of the ungenerate God—as many as we have learned from the holy Scripture reverently to say and to conceive concerning Him.

What, then, are these? I think none of the Christians is ignorant that He is good, that He is kind, that He is holy, righteous and devout, invisible and immortal, incapable of corruption, change, and alteration, powerful, wise, benefactor, Lord, judge—all such things.

...the account of the opposition of the generate to the ungenerate, and that the distinguishing marks of the generate essence stand in contrariety to those observed in the ungenerate nature.

For if they should say the same things, the diversity of the nature of the subjects will no longer be established through the identity of the marks observed.

For of things that are differently constituted, the distinguishing marks too must altogether be thought to be different; but as many as are similarly constituted according to the account of essence are, clearly, characterized by the same signs.

If, then, they attest the same properties also of the Only-begotten, they conceive, as has been said, no difference concerning the subject.

But if they persist in their blasphemous statements and construct the divergence of nature in the difference between the generate and the ungenerate, it is easy to perceive altogether what emerges from the sequence: namely, that, since by the opposition of the names the nature of the things signified by the names is also supposed to stand in contrariety to itself, it is wholly necessary that the properties observed in each should also be driven toward the contrary—so that the opposites of what is said of the Father should be fitted to the Only-begotten: of Godhead, sanctification, goodness, incorruptibility, eternity, and whatever else our reverent conceptions set forth of the God who is over all.

So that they should reckon all that is at variance and set in contradistinction to each of the things supposed of the higher to be properties of the generate essence.

For the sake of clarity we must dwell somewhat longer on this point.

Just as the hot and the cold, being contraries in nature (let fire and ice be assumed for the argument, each being that which the other is not), the things properly appearing in each of these stand altogether at variance with one another (for coldness is proper to ice, and heat to fire), so, if according to the opposition in the names 'ungenerate' and 'generate' the nature signified through the names should also stand apart toward its contrary, it is not possible for the powers of things naturally contrary to be similar to one another—just as it is not possible for coldness to arise in fire, nor burning in ice.

If, then, goodness is conceived in the ungenerate essence, and if, as they say, the ungenerate stands apart from the generate in the account of nature, the property of the ungenerate will altogether stand apart also from what is proper to the generate.

So that if the good is in the former, that which is opposed to the good is conceived in the latter.

And thus, through these wise dogmatizers, Manes will be brought back to life again for us, setting the nature of evil over against the good, and dogmatizing, by the otherness of the essences, that which is opposed in their powers.

But if one must speak with frankness, holding nothing back, Manes might reasonably be thought more pardonable than these—Manes, who they say was the first to have the audacity for the doctrines of the Manichaeans and to name the heresy from himself.

I say these things as though someone were to choose the more humane of a viper and an asp.

Yet, since even among wild beasts there is a judgment of the worse, do not their doctrines, when tested, show them to be less tolerable than the latter? For Manes supposed himself to be pleading on behalf of the cause of good things, holding that no cause of evils took its beginning from that source, and for this reason he attached to another, self-subsistent first principle the cause of all things reckoned toward the worse—as though making a defense on behalf of the God of the universe, that it is not holy to charge the fountain of good things with the transgressions committed contrary to reason; not understanding, out of littleness of soul, that it was possible neither to suppose God the maker of evils nor to imagine anything else without beginning alongside God.

Concerning these matters the discussion is long and would not belong to the present occasion.

And the reason we made mention of what was said is this: that whereas he thought it necessary to remove the origin of evil from the God of the universe, these men construct a blasphemy against the Son even more grievous than his, an outlandish one.

[Him whom they name Son;] and in that they again declare the God of the universe to be the maker of such a fashioned thing—by whom, they say, the generated essence was wrought and stands alien in nature to the one who made it—in this they exceed the aforementioned men in impiety, because they not only grant hypostatic subsistence to that which is by nature contrary to the good, but also say that the good God is the cause of another god who is at variance in nature; all but openly crying aloud in their doctrine that there is something opposed to the nature of the good, deriving its very subsistence from the good itself.

For since the essence of the Father is believed to be good, but the essence of the Son, because it does not hold in the same way as the Father according to the account of nature (as the heresy supposes), is consequently found among the contraries—what is being constructed through these things? Both that the opposite of the good subsists, and that the contrary to the nature has come into subsistence out of the good itself.

This, I say, is even more dreadful than the absurdity of the Manichaeans.

But if they deny the blasphemy in the statement which the sequence of the doctrine reveals, and say that the Only-begotten has inherited the good things of the Father—though not being truly a Son according to the opinion of the reverent, but having His subsistence through creation—let us examine this too, whether it is possible for such a supposition to hold together according to reasonable argument.

For if it be granted, according to their argument, that the Lord inherited all things while not being truly a Son, but, having been created and made, rules over those of the same kind—how will the rest of creation accept it, and not rise in revolt, being thrust from a kinship of the same nature into subjection, if, having nothing inferior according to nature (for it too is created, just as He is), it should then be condemned to serve and bow beneath one of its own kind? For such a thing resembles tyranny: not to apportion sovereignty by the superiority of essence, but, the nature remaining in equality of honor, to divide creation into slavery and lordship, so that in it one part should rule and another be in subjection—as if by a casting of lots this dignity had accidentally accrued to the one who had received by allotment precedence over his equals.

For not even man, being of equal honor with the subject nature, obtained by lot the rule over the irrational animals; rather, being superior in reason, he lords it over the others, set in precedence by the fact that his nature was changed toward the better.

And human dominions, for this reason, have swiftly turning changes, because that which is of equal honor according to nature does not endure not to have an equal share in the higher position; but a certain natural desire is implanted in all to be equalized with what prevails, whenever it is of the same kind.

But how will it be true that all things were made through Him, if it is true that He too, the Son, is one of the things that have come to be? For either He will also have made Himself, lest what is written be false—namely, that 'all things were made through Him'—and thus that absurdity will prevail against them which they sophistically urged against our doctrine, namely to say that He came to be by Himself; or, if this is contrary to reason and has no natural possibility, then that assertion will altogether be shown to be without foundation—the assertion that all creation was made through Him.

For the exception of the one falsifies the statement concerning all things, so that from the position that the Only-begotten is created, the argument will altogether not escape one of two wicked and absurd alternatives: either that He is not the cause of all the things that have come to be—if He Himself be excepted from the all, since they assert Him to be one of the works—or that He is proved to be the maker even of Himself, if he who proclaimed that nothing of the things made came to be apart from Him does not lie.

Such, then, are the arguments on their side.

...holding sovereignty over all things by superiority of nature; and moreover, in addition to these, that the doctrine of the monarchy is not parceled out into different first principles divided by otherness of nature, but that we are to believe in one Godhead, one first principle, one authority over all things—the Godhead being contemplated in the concord of like with like, and leading the understanding through like to like: as the first principle of all things, which is the Lord, shines upon souls through the Holy Spirit (for it is impossible otherwise to contemplate the Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says), and through the Lord, who is the first principle of all things, that which is beyond every first principle is found by us, which is the God who is over all.

For it is not possible otherwise for the archetypal Good to be recognized, unless it appears in the image of the invisible.

And as though running back along some double course after the summit of the knowledge of God—I mean the God who is over all—running through what is proximate and akin to the understanding, we retire from the Father through the Son to the Spirit.

For having taken our stand in the contemplation of the ungenerate light, we then again conceived, next in order, the light that is from it—like some ray subsisting together with the sun, whose cause of being is from the sun, but whose existence is together with the sun, not coming to be at a later time, but appearing forth from it together with the very sight of the sun.

Or rather (for it is not altogether necessary, in being slaves to the image, to give the slanderers a handhold against the argument in the inadequacy of the illustration), we shall not conceive a ray from the sun, but from an ungenerate sun another sun, shining forth together with the very thought of the first in a generated manner, and holding in every respect the same properties—in beauty, power, brightness, magnitude, radiance, and in all the qualities observed of the sun at once.

And again another such light in the same manner, not cut off from the generated light by any temporal interval, but shining forth through it, yet holding the cause of its subsistence from the prototypal light; being itself light nonetheless, shining according to the likeness of the one previously conceived, and illuminating and working all the other operations of light.

For there is no variation of light in respect of another light in this very regard, when it appears in nothing lacking or falling short of the illuminating grace, but, exalted in all perfection to the utmost, is contemplated with the Father and the Son, is numbered after the Father and the Son, and through itself bestows the approach to the light that is conceived in the Father and the Son upon all who are able to partake.

But let these things suffice thus far.

Since, however, he is copious in flowing with revilings, and makes his abuse the establishment of every argument, and, in place of every demonstration of the disputed points, brings forward reviling—come, let us also briefly refute the things by which, slandering our teacher concerning the word 'ungenerate,' he heaped insult both upon that very man and upon reason itself.

He set down a saying of our teacher concerning these things, which runs as follows:

'But I would say that the appellation "ungenerate," even though it seems to accord in the highest degree with our conceptions, nevertheless, inasmuch as it is nowhere laid down in Scripture and is the first element of his blasphemy, may justly be deemed worthy to be passed over in silence, since the term "Father" has the same force as "ungenerate"; for He who is truly and alone Father is from no other, and being from none is the same as being ungenerate.' What proof, then, he brings forward in support of what has been said, to show that this statement was ill-spoken, let us hear.

For He who is truly and alone Father is from no other, and 'being from none' is the same as 'ungenerate.' What proof, then, does he adduce for what has been said, to show that this argument was ill-spoken—let us hear.

The unevenness of the arguments, then, which out of rashness no less than out of shameless wickedness he mingles into his own undertakings, being carried about by the instability of his judgment and by the weakness of his reasonings.

See the marksmanship of his rejoinder—how skillfully, according to that logical dexterity of his, he dissolves the force of what has been said, and introduces in its place the more pious supposition.

'Uneven,' he says, 'in argument, rash no less than wicked in judgment, unstable, carried about by the weakness of his reasonings.'

By what provocation was he stirred—he whose judgment is firmly established and who is sound in his reasonings? Of what, most of all, has he condemned in the things said? That he accepts the notion of the ungenerate, but says that the term, as having been ill-understood by those who distort it, is worthy of silence? For what? Is the security of the faith imperiled in words and utterance, and is there no account of accuracy according to the mind? Or does not the word of truth enjoin, above all, that the heart be kept pure from wicked conceptions, and that words be used for the disclosure of the soul's movements, through which it may be possible to indicate the ineffable thing of the mind—there being no petty quibbling over one who is thus scrupulous about the mere sound of the utterance? For it is not the saying it in this way or in that which becomes the cause of the thought within us; rather, the hidden thought of the heart supplies the cause of such words.

For 'out of the abundance of the heart,' he says, 'the mouth speaks';

and we make speech the interpreter of what has been conceived in the mind; we do not, on the contrary, gather our thought together from the things we say.

And if both things coincide—both to think rightly and to express it well—the man is complete in each respect; but if one of the two be lacking, small is the loss for the untrained man in respect of speech, provided that the knowledge in his soul has been perfected toward the good.

'This people,' he says, 'honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.' What does he signify by this? That with God the Judge, who hearkens to groanings that cannot be uttered, the disposition of the soul toward the truth is more to be prized than the seemliness of speech that lies in words.

For these words can be misused even toward the contrary purpose, since the tongue readily serves whatever seems good to the one who speaks, according to his own liberty;

but the disposition of the soul, however it may in fact be, is seen just as it is by Him who looks upon hidden things.

For what reason, then, is he—no less unstable and rash than wicked—who both confesses and accepts what is piously conceived from the word 'unbegotten,' yet commands that whatever contributes to impiety for those who transgress against the doctrines be passed over in silence? For if he were saying that God ought not to be conceived as unbegotten, he would perhaps have had occasion to use against him these revilings, and even harsher ones than these.

But if he confesses this according to the common supposition of the pious, and, as it were, gives an opinion befitting a teacher's disposition—namely, 'Abstain from this expression, in which the ground of the whole overthrow has its beginning, but hold the notion that God is unbegotten by means of other names as well'—then on account of this he is by no means deserving of these revilings.

Or have we not also been taught by the truth itself to do this—not to cling even to things exceedingly precious, if any of them contributes to evil? For He who commands us likewise to cut off the right eye and foot and hand whenever any of these causes us to stumble—what else does He propose by this enigma than that even the things which seem to be good, if through the ill counsel of those who use them they lead a man toward some evil, He renders idle and inoperative, since it is more profitable to be maimed of the things that lead by the hand to sin and be saved, than, clinging to them, to perish through them?

And what of Paul, the imitator of Christ? He too, in the depth of his wisdom, teaches the same doctrine.

For he who called all things good and nothing to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving, nevertheless at times, on account of the conscience of the weak, again rejects certain of the things he had approved, and bids us decline them.

'For if,' he says, 'because of food my brother is grieved, I will never eat meat, so as not to cause my brother to stumble.'

This, then, is what the imitator of Paul also does: seeing the deceit of those who by means of this term dogmatize the 'unlike' being strengthened through the wicked use of the word 'unbegotten' by the heresy, he counselled that the pious understanding concerning the 'unbegotten' be preserved in souls, but that the expression itself, having become to those who are perishing a provision for sin, should not be too zealously pursued.

For when we heard 'Father,' we straightway understood the Cause of the being of all things; and if He had some other superior cause, He would not properly be named 'Father,' since the proper appellation 'Father' goes back up to the presupposed cause.

But if He Himself is the cause of all things, and 'from Him are all things,' as the Apostle says, then clearly nothing can be conceived as prior to His existence.

And this is precisely to be believed as being in an unbegotten manner.

But he does not allow these things to be well stated—he who deems it right that not even the truth should seem more persuasive than himself, but legislates against it, contradicts it, and mocks the argument.

Or do you wish that we should also examine the inescapable syllogisms and the manifold turns of the sophisms by which he thinks to refute the argument? But I fear lest the pettiness and paltriness of what has been said may in some way discredit along with it also the argument that sets things straight.

For to grapple with striplings who challenge one to a contest brings to grown men more blame from the very fact of contending with such people than praise from seeming to have won.

Nevertheless, what has been said is of this sort.

For the things spoken by way of insult, together with that customary elegance of phrase of his—as being suited to him to utter, and as set before us for an exercise in long-suffering—we consign to silence and oblivion.

For it is not seemly, I think, by sowing the ridiculous things he has said into the matters that are earnestly treated by us, to dissolve into unbecoming and vulgar laughter our earnest striving on behalf of the truth.

For neither is it possible, in listening to these things, to remain unmoved to laughter, if we should hear him speaking out of that lofty and grandiloquent eloquence of his;

for to him for whom the addition of words results in an addition of blasphemy, silence is lighter by half than speaking.

But let these things be laughed at by those who understand what is worthy of acceptance and what of laughter;

let us, however, examine the keenness of the syllogisms with which he drags about our argument.

'For if the Father,' he says, 'is the same as the unbegotten in respect of meaning, and things which have the same force of names are by nature bound wholly to signify the same thing too, and 'unbegotten' signifies, according to them, that God is from nothing, then of necessity 'Father' also signifies that God is from nothing, and not that He has begotten the Son.'

By what necessity, tell me, is 'having begotten the Son' no longer signified by the word 'Father,' if the same appellation also presents to us by itself the Father's being-without-beginning? For if the one were destructive of the other according to the nature of opposites, then necessarily the positing of the one would establish the removal of the other.

But if there is nothing that prevents the same one from being both Father and unbegotten, and if through the appellation 'Father' we also conceive, according to a certain sense, the 'unbegotten,' what necessity is there that the relation to the Son should no longer be made known through the word 'Father'? For neither do the rest of the names which have communion with one another and are carried through all together by their notions do so; since we call the king both self-ruling and lordless, and at the same time the ruler of his subjects, and it is neither false to say of him that the word 'king' signifies also 'lordless,' nor do we say it is a matter of necessity that, if his self-rule and beginninglessness be signified through this word, the power over his subjects should no longer be signified through 'kingship.'

For the name 'kingship,' being midway between both these suppositions, indicates in one respect the 'lordless,' and in another the ruling authority over those who are subordinate.

And here likewise, then, if there is some other father of the Father of the Lord conceived as prior, let those who boast their ineffable wisdom show it, and then we will agree that the notion of the 'unbegotten' cannot be presented by the appellation 'Father.'

But since they wish to deceive—if the 'unbegotten' of the God who is over all be confessed through the appellation 'Father,' why should the notion of the Father be sundered from the relation to the Son? But, spitting out this childish and superficial attempt of theirs, let us manfully confess the very thing which is brought forward by them as absurd: namely, that the name 'Father' both signifies the same as 'unbegotten,' and that the 'unbegotten' presents that the Father is from nothing, and that the 'Father' introduces together with itself, conjointly through the relation, the notion concerning the Only-begotten.

For this very sentence too, which lay attached to the teacher's argument, this formidable and invincible champion filched away from the written words, making the refutation easy for himself by the removal of what had been securely stated.

For the argument stated by the teacher runs thus, according to its very wording: