Against Eunomius 1 part 11/56

'For my part, even the appellation 'unbegotten,' though it may seem in the highest degree to accord with our notions, yet, as being nowhere laid down in Scripture and as being the first element of their blasphemy, I would rightly declare worthy to be passed over in silence, since the word 'Father' has force equal to 'unbegotten' with a view also to introducing, conjointly with itself through the relation, the notion concerning the Son.' But this noble first-combatant for the truth withdrew, by his kindred license, the part that was added to the argument for the sake of security—I mean the clause 'to introduce, conjointly with itself through the relation, the notion concerning the Son'—and, having stolen away the argument of the written words, he grapples with what remains; and having maimed the coherence of the body and rendered it, as he supposed, more rickety for himself and easy to assault for refutation, he tricks his own followers with a cold and feeble sophism, contriving that what shares in a certain respect must share in the signification through all respects, and by this snatching up the superficial hearing.

For whereas we said that the word 'Father' furnishes the signification of 'unbegotten' in a certain respect, he, taking the complete transfer of the signification from the customary connotation of the names, casts the argument, forsooth, into absurdity, as though this appellation no longer indicates the relation to the Son, even if through it the concept of the 'unbegotten' should be signified.

It is as if someone, having learned two notions concerning bread—that it is composed of grain, and that it becomes nourishment to the one who uses it—should quarrel with the one who says so, employing against him the like manner of sophisms, on the ground that the account of its composition from grain is one thing, and again that of its being nourishment is another.

'If, then, it be granted that the bread is from grain, it will no longer, in this very respect, be properly named nourishment as well.'

Such is the meaning of his syllogism.

'For if the 'unbegotten,'' he says, 'is signified by the appellation 'Father,' then this word no longer presents 'having begotten the Son.''

But it is perhaps timely that that solemn cadence of his clause be brought forward by us also against what he says:

for to such people such words are altogether fitting—namely, that he would have had more toward seeming to be sober-minded, if he had defined this 'security' by complete silence.

For to him for whom the addition of words results in an addition of blasphemy—or rather, of the utmost folly—silence is lighter than speaking, not by half, but by the whole.

Perhaps one might rather win him over, from things pertaining to himself, to the truth of what is being said.

And so, leaving aside the crookedness of his web of sophisms, let us discuss the matter before us in a more ordinary and common way.

Your father, O Eunomius, was assuredly a man; but this same man also became to you the cause of your being.

Did you, then, ever employ this clever device also in his case, so that your father, if he receives the definition of his nature, can, because he is a man, no longer signify his relation to you? For it would be necessary, forsooth, that one of the two hold—either that he be a man, or that he be the father of Eunomius.

...the names of one's kin; nay, you would even indict for insult anyone who mockingly made sport of you by an interchange of names; yet, mocking God, you do not shudder, and, laughing to scorn the doctrines of the mysteries, do you laugh with impunity? For just as your father both shows his kinship with you and is in no way hindered by this from being a man, and no one of sound mind, instead of calling the begetter your father, would give the definition of 'man'; or again, being asked concerning his species and having confessed him to be a man, would say that he is prevented by this confession from being also your father—so also in the case of the God of all things, the pious man will neither deny that His being in an unbegotten manner is signified through the appellation 'Father,' and will show that His kinship with the Son is indicated according to another signification;

but he who scoffs at the truth says that the appellation 'Father' no longer signifies 'having begotten the Son,' if we are also taught through the same word that He is unbegotten.

And let us further add this too toward the refutation of the absurdity of what has been said—something which I assert that no one, not even of those very children who are led under a grammarian and pedagogue toward the technical study of names, is ignorant of.

For who does not know that of names some are absolute and unrelated, while others are named with reference to some relation? And of these very ones, again, there are some which incline, according to the will of those who use them, toward either sense—which, when said by themselves, indicate the simple force, but when transposed, often come to be among the relatives.

And that I may not, by using illustrations remote from the matters before us, prolong the discourse, from the doctrines themselves what I mean shall be made clear.

God is called both 'Father' and 'King,' and is named by countless other names by the Holy Scripture.

Now, of these names, there is that which is mentioned simply thus, by itself, so as to be spoken absolutely—such as 'incorruptible,' 'eternal,' 'immortal,' and anything else of the sort;

for these, even if no other notion be understood along with them, delineate in themselves some complete conception concerning God.

But others of the names signify only the reference to something, such as 'helper' and 'defender' and 'protector' and whatever is found to be of such a signification—of which, if you take away the one who needs the help, the force manifested in the name has become idle.

And there are some, as was said before, which are spoken both by themselves and together with the relatives, such as 'God' and 'good' and all such names.

For the notion of these does not remain to the end within the absolute.

For the God who is universal often becomes the peculiar possession of the one who calls upon Him, as it is possible to hear the saints appropriating to themselves the Nature that is without a master:

'Holy is the Lord God'—up to this point it is unrelated;

but he who added 'our' no longer allowed the name to be conceived by itself, having appropriated the signification by the relation to himself.

Again, 'Abba, Father'—the Spirit cries out;

this is the utterance freed from the particular relation.

But we have also been commanded to call the Father who is in the heavens 'our Father';

this, again, is the relative signification.

As, then, one who has made the universal God his own in no way obscured the dignity that is over all, so there is no hindrance that the Father—who displayed the One from Himself as firstborn of all creation—should at once both signify 'having begotten the Son' through the appellation 'Father,' and, through the same word, interpret His not being from a superior cause.

For he who called Him the first Father indicated the One conceived as prior to the whole, beyond whom there is nothing.

Having nothing that He may look upon before Himself, nor any limit at which He may terminate after Himself, but being ever alike present on every side, and transcending both the boundary of an end and the notion of a beginning by the infinity of His life, He has, understood together with every appellation, also His eternity.

But it is another thing that He has no superior cause.

But even if he spit upon the argument, we, counting his mocking laughter as nothing, will boldly answer what we have already said: that the Father is indeed the same as the unbegotten, and signifies both 'having begotten the Son' and presents 'being from nothing.'

But he even labors further upon what has been said and declares (and indeed his argument turns back again to the contrary):

For if God is Father because He has begotten the Son, and in the very same sense in which He is Father He is also unbegotten, then it is because He has begotten the Son that God is unbegotten; but before He begot this Son He was not unbegotten.

Let us therefore examine also the argument of his reversal, and see how, by resolving to the contrary the construction of his former sophism, he once more, even through this device, hems us in with inescapable necessities.

The former syllogism contained this absurdity:

If 'Father' signifies that God is from no one, then of necessity it will no longer indicate that He has begotten the Son.

This man, by his reversal to the contrary, announces to us another absurdity against our doctrine.

What then is the resolution of what was demonstrated there? 'If it is because He has begotten the Son,' he says, 'that God is Father'—

This our former syllogism did not establish; rather, what the sequence of the syllogism was supposedly showing was the impossibility that, if 'unbegotten' were signified through 'Father,' it should also signify the relation toward the Son. But that God is Father for this reason, namely because He has begotten the Son—not even the framing of the former sophism defined this.

What then it is that is being reversed by his dialectical and artful cleverness, I do not yet understand.

Nevertheless, let us consider the meaning of what has been said.

'If it is because He has begotten the Son that God is unbegotten, then before He begot Him, He was not unbegotten.'

Again, ready and simple against what has been said is the word of truth: that the title of 'Father' both indicates the having-begotten of the Son—as has already been demonstrated by us in what was said before—and also that the One who begets is not conceived of as being from any cause.

For if you look toward that which is from Him, the hypostasis of the Only-begotten is made known through the appellation of 'Father';

but if you inquire into that which is before Him, the title of 'Father' indicates the beginninglessness of the One who has begotten the Son.

But to say that before He begot the Son God was not unbegotten brings a double charge against this writer: both of slander against us, and of insolence against the doctrine.

For that which was neither spoken by our teacher nor indeed acknowledged by us he tears to pieces as though it were something agreed upon; and he says that God at some later time came to be Father, being of course previously something else and not Father.

For by those very things through which he supposedly mocks the absurdity of our teaching, he proclaims aloud his own lawlessness concerning the doctrine.

For as though holding it as agreed that, being previously something else, He afterward by progression came to be and was named 'Father,' he says this: that before He begot the Son and on that account was called Father, He was not even unbegotten—if indeed unbegottenness is made known through the notion of 'Father.'

How great a folly this contains, I think there is no need at all of one to refute it;

for it sufficiently exhibits itself of its own accord to those at least who have understanding.

For if God was something else before becoming Father, what will the champions of this doctrine say? In what condition will they declare Him to be contemplated? What name shall be given to His mode of being then—child, infant, babe, youth? Or will they say none of these, perhaps blushing at the manifest absurdity, yet not deny that He is perfect from the beginning? But then how is He perfect who is not yet able to be a Father? Or will they not take away His power, yet say that it is not fitting for Him to be a Father at the same moment as His being? And if it was neither good nor fitting for Him to be from the beginning the Father of such a Son, how, as He advanced, did He acquire what was not good? But surely it is good now, and fitting to the majesty of God, to become the Father of such a Son.

Nor will they say that He has wisdom, nor power, nor truth, nor life, nor all the other things which the Only-begotten Son is and is named according to His various aspects.

But let these things be turned upon the head of those responsible; and let us return again to the point from which we digressed.

'If it is because He has begotten,' he says, 'that God is Father, and if 'Father' signifies 'the unbegotten,' then before He begot He was not unbegotten.'

For if he were saying these things according to the custom that obtains among men—among whom it is impossible for one to acquire the possession of many pursuits at the same time, without taking up each of the things pursued according to some order and sequence of time—if it were necessary to reckon thus also concerning the God of all things, that now He has unbegottenness, and afterward acquires power, then incorruptibility, then prudence, and as He advances becomes Father, and again just, and next eternal, and acquires all the other things that are contemplated concerning Him by some sequence—then perhaps it would not be very absurd to suppose that one of the names concerning God takes precedence over another, and to say that He first became unbegotten, and afterward Father.

But as it is, who is so lowly in mind and so uninitiated into the grandeur of divine doctrines, that, having taken into his mind the Cause of all things that are, he does not take up his understanding of all things reverently conceived concerning God at once, all together and closely knit as one, but supposes that one thing came to Him later, another at the beginning, and yet another in between, according to some sequence of order? For it is not possible, having passed over in one's reasoning any one of the things reverently said concerning God, to meet with another matter or notion which could be exalted above the primordiality of what was said; but every divine name, and every magnificent notion, and every tongue and conception befitting the thoughts concerning God, is bound together with every other and united; and all the conceptions concerning God are apprehended continuously, all at once and closely knit with one another—fatherhood, unbegottenness, power, incorruptibility, goodness, authority, and all the rest.

For each of these is not conceived as divided off, cut apart from the rest by itself according to some temporal interval, as taking precedence over another or following after it; but whatever magnificent and reverent name is found, it is co-manifested together with the eternity of God.

As therefore it is not possible ever to say that God is not good, or not powerful, or not incorruptible, or not immortal, so in the same manner it is impious not always to attribute fatherhood to Him, but to say that it came to Him later.

For He who is truly Father is always Father;

but if 'always' is not added to the confession, but some notion vainly conceived beforehand should cut off and curtail the notion of the Father upward, then it will no longer be confessed in the proper sense that He is truly Father, since that notion of the Son conceived beforehand annuls the eternity and perpetuity of the fatherhood.

For how is it possible that what came to be at some later time should be conceived as what is now spoken of? If then, being first unbegotten, He afterward became and was named Father, then He was by no means always that which He is now named;

but God is what He now is, and always is, becoming neither worse nor better by any addition, nor taking on anything else from something else and being altered, but He is ever the same as Himself.

If then He was not Father from the beginning, neither did He afterward become Father;

but if it is confessed that He is Father, again I will resume the same argument: that what He now is, He also always was; and if He always was, He also will be forever.

Therefore the Father is always Father;

and since together with the Father the Son also is by all means co-conceived (for it is not possible for the title of the Father to be confirmed unless the appellation of the Son is verified), all the things contemplated in the Father are beheld also in the Son.

For all things whatsoever the Father has are the Son's, and all the things of the Son the Father has.

[He is] Father in that all the things of the Son are beheld in the Father.

For the Son has all the things of the Father, yet is not Father; and conversely, all the things of the Son are contemplated in the Father, yet He is not Son.

If then in the Only-begotten are all the things of the Father, and He is in the Father, and fatherhood is not severed from unbegottenness, what can be conceived concerning the Father separately, by itself, at any interval prior to the notion of the Son? For my part, I do not see it.

Therefore we may without fear take courage against the things put forward against us through the sophism, and go to meet them, and, in no way terrified by the syllogism, say to that bogey concocted to frighten children: that God is holy and immortal and Father and unbegotten and eternal and all things together at once.

And if, by hypothesis, you grant that even one of the things reverently said concerning Him is not, then by that one all the rest are done away together;

for it is not possible, unless He be immortal, for the rest to be; and what has been said of a part is to be conceived of the whole.

Therefore nothing concerning Him is either earlier or later; otherwise He will be found in this way older than Himself and younger.

For if God is not always all things, but according to some order and sequence He partly is and partly comes to be (though there is no composition concerning Him, but whatever He is, He is wholly)—and if, according to the argument of the heresy, being first unbegotten He afterward becomes Father, while no heap of pursuits is conceived concerning Him—then He becomes nothing other than His whole self both older and later than His whole self: in respect of unbegottenness taking precedence of Himself, but in respect of the notion of Father becoming second to Himself.

But if, as the prophet says concerning God, that He is the same, then vain is the one who says that before He begot He was not unbegotten, since neither of these is found apart from the other—neither the name of 'Father' nor that of 'unbegotten'—but the two notions arise together and along with one another in the understandings of those who reason reverently.

For God is Father from eternity, and Father eternal; and all things whatsoever that are reverently said are named at the very same time, since, as we have said, this temporal sequence and order is idle when applied to the pre-eternal Nature.

But let us look also at the rest of his dialectical dexterity, which he himself says are at once both ridiculous and pitiable—rightly saying this.

For truly broad indeed is the laughter over what has been said; or rather, great is the lamentation over the deceit that holds his soul in its grip.

For since, according to some signification, 'Father' also encompasses the notion of the unbegotten, as our argument holds, he, transferring the proper signification of 'Father' to the 'unbegotten' alone, says the following:

'For if it is the same thing to say 'unbegotten' or 'Father,' it will be permitted us, leaving aside the word 'Father' and taking up 'unbegotten' instead, to say:'

'The Unbegotten is unbegotten of the Son';

'for just as the Unbegotten is the Father of the Son, so conversely the Father is the unbegotten of the Son.'

It remains for me henceforth to marvel at the man's ingenuity, and to think that the versatility and variety of his trifling with the doctrines surpasses the capacity of the many.

For what was said by our teacher is a single statement, having its compass in brief—that it is possible for unbegottenness to be signified also through the appellation of 'Father'; but the things said by this man are so many—the multitude of which lies not in the difference of the things conceived, but in the circuit and turning-about of similar phrases.

For just as those who go round a mill with their eyes covered remain in the same place though the journey be long, so he ever revolves about the same things and does not depart from them.

He said once, in mockery, that 'Father' does not signify the having-begotten, but the being-from-no-one.

'If 'Father' signifies 'the unbegotten,' then before He begot He was not unbegotten.'

Then for the third time he comes back round to the same things:

'For it is permitted,' he says, 'having taken up 'unbegotten,' to say:'

'The Unbegotten is unbegotten of the Son.'

And straightway he took up again what he had many times vomited forth, and says:

'For just as the Unbegotten is the Father of the Son, so conversely the Father is the unbegotten of the Son.'

He ran back to his own vomit—how many times he took it up again, how many times he spewed it forth!

Shall we then not also become burdensome to the many by the vanity of the things put forward by him, dragging our own argument along with his? And perhaps to be silent would have been more fitting in such matters;

but lest anyone should suppose that we let the argument slip through weakness in refutation, we shall answer the following to what has been said.

It is not permitted you to call the Father 'unbegotten of the Son,' even though the title of 'Father' signifies that the One who has begotten is not from a cause.

For just as, according to the example we gave, on hearing the dignity of 'king' we conceived two things from the name—both that the one who is preeminent in authority is subject to none, and that he rules over his subjects—so also the appellation of 'Father,' as applied to God, furnishes us with a double signification: both the relation conceived toward the Son, and His being dependent on no cause conceived beforehand.

As therefore in the case of the king it is not possible to say that, if the two things are signified through the same appellation—both his ruling over his subjects and his having no one before him—it is permitted to call him not the ruler of the nation, but 'un-kinged' over his subjects; nor, by combining, to say such a thing as that, just as he is called king of a nation, so also he shall be named 'un-kinged' of the nation; in the same manner also, since the word 'Father' both indicates the Son and presents the notion of the unbegotten, it is not permitted, by transferring the signification contrary to what is due, ridiculously to glue the notion of the unbegotten onto the intimacy toward the Son, by saying that the Unbegotten is unbegotten of the Son.

And upon these things that have been said, as though he had set foot upon the truth and had thoroughly refuted the absurdity of his opponents, he speaks as one greatly vaunting himself.

"And who," he says, "being of sound mind, ever judged it right to pass over the natural notion in silence, yet honored the mad conception?" No one, O most wise sir; and therefore neither did our own argument, which said that the appellation 'Unbegotten' accords with our notions and that this notion ought to be held immovable in our hearts, while in place of the word that you have distorted, the appellation 'Father' is sufficient and leads us to that very notion.

For remember the very words that you yourself set down: that he did not judge it right to pass the natural notion over in silence while honoring the madness, as you name it;

rather, it is only the appellation of the 'Unbegotten'—that is, its utterance in syllables—that, as being ill-conceived and moreover nowhere spoken by Scripture, he counsels may be passed over in silence without danger; whereas he affirms that the thing signified does indeed accord most fully with our notions.

But such, then, are the things put forward on our side.

But he who denounces the sophists, and who arms his discourse with truth, and who accuses us of our faults, does not blush, in his arguments concerning doctrines, to play the wit by means of sophistries, imitating those who at banquets draw forth laughter through certain clever quips.

For behold the weight and reasoned care of the interweaving of his syllogism!

For I shall again call to mind those same words.

"For if it is the same thing to say 'Unbegotten' or 'Father,' it will be permitted us, abandoning the word 'Father,' to take up instead and say 'Unbegotten';

the Unbegotten is unbegotten of the Son;

for just as the Unbegotten is the father of the Son, so conversely the Father is unbegotten of the Son."

For this is closely parallel to that.

For just as, if someone were to say by right and sound reasoning that it makes no difference whether one calls Adam the father of all men or the first of men to be fashioned by God (for the same thing is signified by either expression), and then some one of the dialecticians of his kind, leaping upon what was said, were to imitate such an interweaving—arguing that, if it is the same thing to say either that he was the first fashioned by God or the father of those who came after, it will be permitted us, abandoning the word 'father,' to take up instead and say 'first-fashioned';

Adam is not the father of Abel, but the first-fashioned of Abel;

do you suppose that applause and laughter would burst forth from the tipplers, cackling at the cleverness of the far-fetched conceit? With arguments of this sort our wise theologian makes his stand against us and runs down our doctrine—though truly in need of some tutor and a rod, that he might be taught that not everything predicated of anything looks altogether to a single signification, as is shown by the illustration we have given concerning Abel and Adam.

For it is true to call the same Adam both the father of Abel and the work of God;

yet not because he himself is both are these two things true also of Abel.

So too in the case of the God of all things: the appellation 'Father' indeed makes plain both what is properly signified by such a word—I mean, the having begotten the Son—and it also indicates that no cause is conceived as prior to the true Father;

yet it is not thereby compelled that, whenever we make mention of the Son, we must not call him father of the Son, but must address him as unbegotten of the Son;

nor again, if in relation to the Son the being-without-beginning were passed over in silence, must we cast out from our understanding the 'Unbegotten' as applied to God.

But he rejects such a use of the names, and, after the manner of comic mimes, mocks the doctrine with the outlandishness of his sophistries, playing the buffoon in matters of doctrine.

For once more I shall recall the things said by him.

"If it is the same thing to say 'Unbegotten' or 'Father,' it will be permitted us, abandoning the word 'Father,' to take up instead and say 'Unbegotten';

the Unbegotten is unbegotten of the Son;

for just as the Unbegotten is the father of the Son, so conversely the Father is unbegotten of the Son."

But let us, if it seem good, laugh back in turn, and turn the sophism round against him to the contrary effect.

If the Father is not the same as the Unbegotten, then the Son of the Father will not also be the Son of the Unbegotten.

For, having his relation to the Father alone, he will surely stand altogether alien in nature toward one who is something else and does not accord with the notion of the Father;

so that if the Father is something other than the Unbegotten, and the appellation 'Father' and the signification of 'Unbegotten' do not include one another, then the Son, being one, cannot be parceled out into relations to two distinct things and be the same Son both of the Father and of the Unbegotten;

and just as it was reckoned absurd to call God the unbegotten of the Son, so surely, in the converse also, an equal absurdity will be found in calling the Only-begotten the Son of the Unbegotten;

so that one of two things follows: either the Father is the same as the Unbegotten, so that the Son of the Father may also be the Son of the Unbegotten—and then our argument has been derided in vain—or, if the Father is something other than the Unbegotten, then the Son of the Father has been estranged from any relation to the Unbegotten.

And if this prevails—that the Only-begotten is not from the Unbegotten—then the logical sequence of the argument will surely show the Father to be, for him, begotten;

for that which exists, yet exists not unbegottenly, assuredly has a begotten subsistence.

If, then, the Father is begotten according to them, being something other than the Unbegotten, where is that much-vaunted unbegottenness? Where is the foundation and base of the heretical tower-building? It is gone and vanished away, the 'Unbegotten' having slipped from their grasp, through the meagerness of their sophistries, out of the very things they seemed for a while to hold; and the fabrication of the 'Unlike,' dissolving like some dream, has escaped the discourse's touch, flying away together with the 'Unbegotten.'

Thus, whenever some falsehood is honored above the truth, even if for a little while it flowers through deceit, it swiftly collapses upon itself and is dissolved by its own fabrications.

But these things have been put forward by us only so far as to smile at the cleverness of the repayment to the 'Unlike.'

It would now be time, however, to bring the discourse back again to its proper sequence.

Eunomius does not wish the signification to be established by the word 'Father' and by 'Unbegotten,' so that he may build up the notion that the Only-begotten at some time was not.