Against Eunomius 1 part 17/56

None of the things that exist has its subsistence from some spontaneous chance, as certain persons have supposed that random and irrational entanglements of the primary elements wrought for us the whole cosmos and the things in it, no providence coming through the things that exist; but there is some Cause of the constitution and administration of the universe, upon which the whole nature of intelligible beings depends, and from which they have their beginnings and causes, and toward which they incline and turn and in which they abide.

And since, as the Apostle says, His eternal power and Godhead are perceived, being understood from the creation of the world, therefore all creation—and before all, as the word says, the arrangement in the heavens—shows forth, through the artistry that appears in the things made, the wisdom of Him who made them.

And this, it seems to me, is what he wished to set forth, desiring to establish from the things that appear the testimony that the things that exist have been fashioned wisely and skilfully and continue forever in the power of Him who steers the whole.

He says that the heavens themselves, through which they display the wisdom of their Maker, all but send forth a voice to cry aloud and proclaim the wisdom of the Craftsman—without a voice.

For it is possible, as it were, to hear them teaching by a kind of word: that 'Looking upon us, O men, and upon the beauty and greatness in us, and this ever-moving revolution, and this well-ordered and harmonious motion, ever the same and in like manner, consider Him who presides over our constitution, and through the visible beauty reckon up the archetypal and invisible Beauty.'

For there is nothing among us that is without a master, or self-moved, or spontaneous, but everything that appears concerning us and is conceived depends upon that lofty and unutterable Power.

These things are not an articulate discourse, yet they instil in souls, through the things that appear, the knowledge of the divine power more than if a word were proclaiming it by a voice.

For lest we should suppose the creation to be masterless and self-generated, he says that it came into being from the divine Nature, and declares that it was constituted with a certain order and sequence.

And it would be a lengthy matter to philosophize concerning the order of the things dogmatically set forth by Moses under the form of a history, in the account of the world's creation.

For thus, rather, through each of the things written, the erroneous and vain character of the opposing supposition would be clearly refuted.

But it is open to anyone who wishes, by consulting the labors we have expended on Genesis, to judge which is the more consistent account—ours or our adversaries'.

But we must bring the discourse back to the task set before us: that the expression 'to say' does not by any means indicate, in the case of God, a voice and a word, but rather, declaring the power to be concurrent with the will of God, it points us more sensibly to the intelligible contemplation.

It presents the authority of the will; and by adding 'And it was so,' it shows that in the divine Nature there is no difference between willing and acting;

but it teaches that in the case of God the thought leads the activity, and that what is effected does not come later, after what is thought, but that the two are beheld together and at the same instant—both the movement of the mind and the power that brings the matter to completion.

For the word gave us to conceive no medium between the purpose and the deed; but just as with the kindling of the flame the ray also shines forth together, being both from it and shining together with it, in the same manner the subsistence of the things that came to be is a work of the divine will, yet it does not come second in order after the volition.

For it is not as with other things, in which there is by nature some practical faculty—where the one is beheld in potentiality and the other in the fulfilment of the activity, as, for instance, we say that one who possesses the shipbuilder's art is always a shipbuilder in potentiality, but is active only when he displays his skill upon actual works—it is not so also in the case of the blessed Life.

But whatsoever is conceived in that Life is entirely activity and deed, the will passing over without any medium to the end proposed.

As, then, the arrangement in the heaven bears witness to the Craftsman's glory and confesses its Maker, yet needs no voice, so too one might reason, drawing the reverse from the Scripture of Moses: that God calls the world His own creation—He who by His command gave substance to the whole and needs no words to make plain this His thought.

As, then, one who hears the heaven narrating did not seek an elaborate discourse (for the world speaks to the one who has understanding through the things that come to pass, dispensing with declaration by words), so too, when someone hears Moses saying that God, by name, ordains and commands concerning each of the several parts of the world, let him neither suspect that the prophet lies, nor belittle the contemplation of lofty things with petty and grovelling notions—as though by such things humanizing the Divine and supposing that it goes through its commands in detail by a voice, according to our custom—but let the command declare the will, and the names of the things created signify the very subsistence of the things that came to be;

so that from what has been said we may learn two things: both that God, having willed, wrought all things, and that without toil and without labor the divine will became nature.

But if someone should interpret 'God said' too carnally, so as to establish that the articulate word came into being from Him for this reason, this same person will also assume that 'God saw' is according to our perceptive sense through the activity of the eyes, and 'The Lord heard and had mercy on me,' and 'He smelled a savor of sweetness,' and whatever else the Scripture recounts too bodily concerning a divine head or foot or hand or nose or eyelids or fingers or sandal—taking all according to the surface signification, he will depict for us the Divine in human form, after the likeness of the things that appear in us.

But if one who hears that the heavens are the works of fingers, and 'a mighty hand,' and 'a high arm,' and eye and eyelids and foot and sandals, reckons up through each of these expressions notions befitting God, and does not defile the account concerning the pure Nature by befouling it with bodily suppositions, it would be consistent also to regard the utterances of the words as indicative indeed of the divine will, yet not to take them for articulate voices, but to reckon this: that the Creator of the rational nature bestowed upon us the faculty of speech in proportion to the measure of our nature, so that through it we might have the means of declaring the movements of the soul.

And to whatever degree the one Nature is distant from the other—I mean the divine from ours—by the same measure of distance do all things pertaining to it differ from what is contemplated in us, in the direction of what is more majestic and more befitting God.

The power that is ours, judged against that of God, is as nothing; and our life against that Life; and all the rest of our attributes, judged against those in Him, are as nothing before Him, as the prophecy says; so also our word, judged against the truly existent Word, is nothing.

For this word of ours was not in the beginning, but was fashioned together with our nature; nor is it beheld in an individual subsistence, but, as the teacher somewhere says, it vanishes together with the noise of the tongue; nor is there any work of this word to be conceived, but it has its subsistence in voice and letter alone.

But the Word that is from God is God—the Word who was in the beginning and abides forever, through whom all things are and hold together, and who presides over the whole and has all authority over the things in heaven and the things upon earth, being life and truth and righteousness and light and every good, and sustaining all things in their being.

Since, then, the Word conceived of concerning God is of such a kind and so great, this man bestows upon God, as though it were something great, the word that is composed of nouns and verbs and conjunctions—not knowing that, just as He who bestowed the practical faculty upon our nature is not said to fashion each of our particular works, but the one gave the faculty to nature, while by us are wrought a house and a bench and a sword and a plough and whatever else life happens to need (of which the individual works are indeed ours, but have their reference back to the Author of our very selves, who fashioned our nature receptive of all knowledge)—so also the faculty of speech is a work of Him who made our nature such, while the invention of the individual words, for the need of signifying the underlying objects, was devised by us ourselves.

And a proof of this is that many of the things said are reckoned to be altogether shameful and unseemly, of which no person of sense would suppose God to be the inventor;

so that even if some of the words customary among us are spoken in the person of God by the divine Scripture, one must know that the Holy Spirit converses with us out of things that are ours, just as in the history of Acts we learned that each received the teaching in his own tongue in which he was born, hearkening to the power of the words through the words familiar to himself.

And that these things are true, one might learn the better by more diligently examining the Levitical legislation.

For there it makes mention of a frying-pan and a wafer and fine flour and such-like names in the mystical rites, symbolically and by way of riddle expounding certain soul-profiting doctrines; and it names certain measures according to the custom of that time, speaking of a hyphi and a nebel and an hin and many such things;

Did He, then, make these appellations and name them, or from the beginning so ordain them to be and to be called, that He should call such a seed 'grain,' and name the inner substance of it 'fine flour,' and call the surface and membranous and spread-out parts of the baked goods 'wafers,' and command that such a vessel, in which the moisture of the dough is baked out and dried up, be named a 'frying-pan,' and prescribe that so great a quantity of the liquid be designated by the name of the hin or of the nebel, and that the drier crops be measured by the gomor?... These are nonsense and Jewish vanity, fallen far short of the greatness of Christian conception—to think that the great and most high God, who is above every name and thought, who by the power of His will alone holds together the whole and brings it into being and preserves it in existence, sits, like some schoolmaster, elaborating in fine detail such placements of names.

...the Power which shapes the tongues of the holy prophets, leading us through these things into the understanding of lofty matters, making its teaching not according to its own greatness (for how could the great be contained in the small?), but condescending to the smallness of our capacity.

And just as God, having granted to the living creature the power of motion, no longer fashions each individual step (for once nature has received its beginning from its Maker, it moves itself and carries itself on, effecting motion as seems good on each occasion — though it is said that 'the steps of a man are directed by the Lord'), so too, having received from God the ability to speak and to utter sounds and to declare its intention by the voice, nature proceeds along its way through practical affairs, applying certain signs to things that exist by means of a particular variation of vocal sounds.

And these are what we call words and names, by which we signify the force of things.

And even if Moses speaks of the fruit before the coming-to-be of fruits, and of the seeds before the coming-to-be of seeds, this does not refute our argument, nor does the lawgiver's meaning conflict with what has been said concerning conception (epinoia).

For that which we name the 'end' of the past cultivation, calling it fruit, and the 'beginning' of the coming cultivation, calling it seed — this very thing which underlies the names, whether wheat or any other of the things that multiply through sowing, [Scripture] teaches did not come to be spontaneously, but sprang up by the will of the Maker together with this power;

so that the same thing both becomes fruit and again, becoming seed, produces itself, and by its surplus nourishes man.

But according to the divine will there grows up a thing, not a name;

so that the thing which exists in subsistence is the work of the Maker's power, while the vocal expressions that make things known — by which discourse marks out each particular for exact and unconfused teaching — these are works and inventions of the rational faculty; but this very rational faculty and nature is the work of God.

And since the rational faculty is in all men, of necessity, according to the differences of the nations, the differences of names too are observed.

If, then, anyone should say that light or heaven or earth or the seeds were named by God in human fashion, he will altogether establish his argument on the supposition that this came to be according to some particular property of a language.

For it is by no means outside the bounds of likelihood that the one who knows the former should not be ignorant of the latter.

For indeed at the Jordan, after the descent of the Spirit, and again in the hearing of the Jews, and at the Transfiguration, a voice came from above teaching men — and a certain form as well — not to suppose only what appeared, but to believe that the beloved Son of God is true.

Such a voice was formed by God in the aerial body to suit the understanding of the hearers, coming into being according to the prevailing usage of speakers at that time — God, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, having articulated the word in the air for the goal of the hearers' salvation; as indeed the Lord says to the Jews who supposed that thunder had occurred, because the sound had been constituted in the air, that 'This voice came not because of me, but because of you.'

But before the constitution of the universe, when there was nothing to receive the word, nor any bodily element capable of forming articulate voice, how will the one who says that God made use of words render his argument likely? He himself is incorporeal, creation did not yet exist, the Word gives us no ground to conceive of anything material about him, and those who might have been benefited through hearing did not yet exist.

And since men did not exist, no mode of dialect had at all been formed according to the particular property of any nation.

The one, therefore, who looks to the bare letter — by what reasonings does he arrive at such a notion, as though God uttered these words and names? And yet even through these considerations one might recognize the vanity of those who say such things.

The natures of the elements, being the work of the Maker, appear the same to all alike, and there is no difference in sense-perception among men in their participation of fire or air or water, but the nature is one and unchanging in all, working in the same way and altered in no respect according to the differences of those who partake of it; so too the imposition of names, if indeed it had been fitted to things by God, would have been the same for all.

But as it is, the nature of things, as being fixed by God, remains unmoved, while the vocal expressions that signify them have been cleft into so many differences of tongues that it is not even easy to number their multitude.

And if anyone brings forward the confusion at the building of the tower as contradicting what has been said, not even there is God said to make the tongues of men, but to confound the one that existed, so that they might not all understand one another.

For as long as life was in one and the same manner for all, and they had not yet been divided into the many differences of nations, the whole fullness of all men lived together with one voice;

but when, according to the divine will, all the earth had to be settled by men, then, being torn apart in respect of their community of speech, one was scattered here and another there, and they were transformed into one character of words and voice after another — having received a common tongue as a certain bond of concord toward one another — not disagreeing as to the knowledge of things, but differing as to the form of names.

For a stone or a piece of wood does not seem to be something different among different peoples; but the names of the material are diverse among each, so that our argument stands firmly established, which defines that human vocal expressions are inventions of our own understanding.

For neither at the beginning, so long as all humankind was of one voice with itself, have we learned from Scripture that any teaching of words from God came to men; nor, when they were divided into the varied differences of tongues, did any divine law preside over how each should speak;

but God, willing that men should come to be in different tongues, allowed nature to proceed along its way, articulating the sound among each people as seemed good, unto the clarity of names.

Moses, therefore, being born many generations after the building of the tower, made use of one of the tongues that came into being thereafter, recounting to us the origin of the cosmos in historical fashion, and attributing certain vocal expressions to God — setting these things forth in his own tongue, in which he had been educated and habituated, and not altering the vocal expressions of God by some strange and foreign character of speech (so as, by the strangeness of expression and the alteration of the names, to establish that the vocal expressions are God's own), but using the customary tongue, he sets forth alike both his own things and the things of God.

But some of those who have followed the divine Scriptures more diligently say that the Hebrew tongue is not even ancient like the rest, but that this too, among the other wonders, was worked as a marvel for the Israelites — namely, that this tongue was suddenly improvised for the nation after Egypt.

And there is a certain word of the prophet that confirms such a thing;

for 'when he came out,' he says, 'of Egypt, then he heard a tongue that he had not known.'

If, then, Moses was a Hebrew, and the tongue of the Hebrews was the last of all the others, does not he who was born so many thousands of years after the constitution of the world, and who recounts the sayings of God in the tongue that was his own — does he not clearly teach that he does not record on God's part such a voice as is fashioned according to man, but says these things because it is not even possible to speak what is thought otherwise than by human vocal expressions, while signifying through what is said some meaning befitting God and more magnificent? For how the reasonable man would agree to the notion that God made use of the Hebrew tongue, when there was no one to hear such a voice, I do not know.

In the Acts we have learned that for this reason the divine power was split into many tongues, in order that none of those of other tongues might be deprived of the benefit.

Whom, then, was [God] going to benefit by such a voice [at creation]? For that discourse should be adapted to the capacity of the hearers with a view to the goal of their benefit — no one would suppose this to be anything unworthy of the divine love for mankind, since Paul too, the imitator of the Lord, knows how to handle discourse fittingly to the dispositions of his hearers, becoming milk to babes and solid food to the mature;

but when no goal is accomplished by such a use of discourse, then to maintain that God rehearses such words as these to himself, when there is no one who needs the signification through such vocal expressions — I do not know how such a notion is not laughable, and at the same time blasphemous.

Neither, therefore, is the voice of God Hebrew, nor is it uttered according to any other pattern of those in use among the nations;

but all the words of God that were written down by Moses or the prophets are indications of the divine will, shining in various ways according to the worthiness of those who partake of the grace, upon the pure and governing part of the saints.

Moses, then, spoke as was natural to him and as he had been educated, but he attributed these vocal expressions to God, as has often been said, on account of the childish condition of those who were then just being brought to the knowledge of God — for the vivid presentation of the divine will, and that he might render the hearers more obedient, being awed by the trustworthiness of the one who spoke.

But Eunomius, who brings forth such reviling against us — the heir and advocate of the established custom — does not say so; for having converted the insult into praise, I will welcome him with his own words.

But he stoutly maintains that Moses himself bears witness for him, that from the one who created nature there was bestowed upon men the use both of the things named and of the names, and that the naming of the things given is prior to the coming-to-be of those who use them — thus speaking, all in his own words, verbatim.

If, then, he possesses some private Moses of his own, from whom he learns these clever things, and, setting out from there, takes courage in such arguments, that God legislates, as this man says, the sayings of men, commanding thus and forbidding otherwise that the vocal expressions be imposed upon things, let him use his nonsense as he pleases, having as his ally the hidden Moses;

but if the only Moses is the one whose Scripture is a common lesson for those educated in the divine word, we shall accept the condemnation, if we are convicted by the words of Moses.

Where, then, did he find the law concerning words and names? Let him set it forth from the very things that are written.

The origin of the cosmos, the genealogy of the successive generations of men, the history of certain events, and the varied legislation concerning both the observances of worship and those of daily life — these are the chief heads of the writing of Moses.

And if this man says there is some legislation of words, let him show the law, and I will be silent;

but he would not be able to say it.

For he would not, forsaking the clearer proofs, have gone through those things by which he seems to his hearers more laughable than persuasive.

For to suppose that this is the chief point of piety — to attribute in addition to God the invention of words, to whom the whole cosmos and the wonders in it are but a small thing for his praise — how is this not the utmost silliness, to forsake great things and, from human matters, to dignify the divine? A command of creation took the lead, spoken indeed by Moses in human fashion, but coming to pass in a manner befitting God.

This will, therefore, which is productive of the things constituted by the divine power — this the exact expositor of the Scriptures declares to be a teaching of words; and as though God had said, 'Let a word come to be,' or 'Let discourse be constituted,' or 'Let this thing receive such-and-such an appellation,' he puts forward, in defense of his own words, the subsistence-giving motion of creation in the divine will — not knowing even this, for all his great attention to the Scriptures and experience, that even an impulse of the mind is often called a 'voice' by Scripture.

For who, of those who have in any way at all conversed with the book, does not know that the people of Israel were suddenly panic-stricken in the wilderness at the onslaught of the Egyptians — having just fled from Egypt — and, with dangers appearing to them on every side, the sea there walling off their passage, the enemy behind them preventing their flight, coming together against the prophet, laid to his charge this helpless plight?

And as he was comforting those cowering in fear and encouraging them to courage, there comes a voice from God calling the prophet by name;

'Why do you cry out to me?' — and yet, before the things stated, the account makes no mention of any voice of Moses, but the prophet's thought toward God was called a 'voice,' being cried out in silence within the hidden meaning of the heart.

If, then, Moses cries out without uttering a sound, before the Witness who hears the unutterable groanings, what is strange if the prophet also, having come to know the divine will, revealed it — as far as it was possible for him to speak and for us to hear — through words familiar and customary to us, describing a dialogue of God in a rather corporeal manner, not carried out by words, but expressed through the very deeds? 'In the beginning God made,' he says, not the name of heaven and earth, but heaven and earth;

'and [God] said, Let there be light' — not the appellation of light;

'and having separated the light from the darkness, God called,' he says, 'the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.'

It is likely that on these [texts] those who oppose us rely.

For I will marshal the argument on their behalf, and set over against it, in the sequence of the examination, the things put forward by them, so that our doctrine may be more strongly confirmed for us, no objection being left unexamined.

'God called,' he says, 'the firmament Heaven, and the dry land he called Earth, and the light Day, and the darkness Night.'

'How then,' they will say, 'when Scripture confesses that the appellations were imposed on these by God, do you say that the names are of human conception?' What, then, [do we say] to this? Again we take refuge in our simple argument, and say that he who brought the whole creation from non-being into the being of things is the Maker of things contemplated in subsistence, not of insubstantial names constituted in the sound of the voice and the noise of the tongue;

and things are named, according to the nature and power inherent in each, by means of some significative vocal expression, the appellation being fitted to the underlying realities according to the usage prevailing in each nation.

But since many of the things contemplated in creation do not have a simple nature, so as to be capable of being comprehended in a single word — as, for instance, in the case of fire, the underlying thing is one in nature, but the name significative of the thing is another (for the one is the enkindling and burning and dry and heating thing that consumes the material it lays hold of, while the name is a certain short vocal expression uttered through a single syllable) — for this reason the reason that divides names each of the powers and qualities contemplated in fire separately, as we said before;

and one could not say that a mere name has been imposed upon fire, when one names it either 'bright' or 'consuming' or any other of the properties contemplated about it;

for such vocal expressions are significative of the powers naturally inherent in it.

In the same way, also in the case of 'heaven' and 'firmament,' though one nature is signified in each of the names, the difference of names presents something proper to those things known in this part of creation, so that we, looking to this, learn one thing through the appellation of 'heaven,' and another through 'firmament.'

For when the account outlines the limit of the sensible creation, after which succeeds the intelligible and supracosmic realm, the beginning and the limit of all material subsistence is called [firmament] by comparison with the impalpable and incorporeal and formless firmament;

the nature is bounded, and we call this 'heaven,' which becomes the boundary of all visible things.