Against Eunomius 1 part 18/56

In the same way also in the case of 'earth' and 'dry land': since the downward-tending and heavy nature was divided toward these two elements — I mean toward the earth and the waters — the appellation 'dry' is in a way distinctive of the opposing quality;

for it was named 'dry' by contrast with the moist, when, by the divine command, having stripped off the water that had been poured around it, it appeared in its own proper quality;

but the name 'earth' no longer indicates the signification of any one of the qualities about it, but comprehends by the emphasis inherent in it everything conceived in the element — such as the compact, the dense, the weighty, the resistant, the thing suited to the nurture of all fruits and living creatures.

The 'dry land,' then, was not renamed by the account with a view to the name last imposed upon it (for it did not, by means of the second name, lay aside being and being called 'dry'), but both this appellation and that remaining, there underlies each of the names a certain proper signification — the one distinguishing it from the nature and property of a different kind, the other comprehensive of every power contemplated in it.

So also in the case of 'light' and 'day,' and again in the case of 'night' and 'darkness,' we find not a sound of syllables being fashioned upon these by the Maker of all, but we recognize the subsistence of things through these appellations.

By the will of God, the darkness that prevailed at the first creation is dissolved by the entrance of light;

and since the earth was encompassed in the midst and held itself up by the surrounding embrace of the elements of a different nature on every side — as Job says, that 'He hangs the earth upon nothing' — it was necessary, as the light passed through on one side, that, the earth on the opposite side blocking it off by its own mass, a certain portion of darkness should be left behind through the shadow; and, as the ever-moving revolution of the pole carried round with itself by necessity also the gloom arising from the shadow, God appointed this cyclical circuit to become the measure of temporal extension.

And this measure is day and night.

For this reason Moses, in accordance with his own wisdom, expounding to us such doctrines in a more narrative manner, called the darkness that comes on through the earth's blocking of the light 'a separation of light and darkness,' and he named the ever-recurring, measured succession of light and darkness about the terrestrial region 'day' and 'night.'

Thus the light was not given the name 'day' as a mere additional appellation; but just as light came into being and not a bare naming of light, so also the measure of time came into being, and the name followed upon the measure—a name not produced by the Maker through any sounding of words, but drawn forth by the very nature of the thing itself into a signification given through the voice.

And just as, if this had been plainly stated by the lawgiver—that everything which appears and is named is not self-originated nor uncreated, but has its subsistence from God—we would of ourselves have concluded that God made the whole cosmos and its parts, the order discerned within it, and the power that makes beings knowable: so also, by what he said, he leads us to this understanding, namely, to believe that none of the things that are is without beginning.

And with this in view, he proceeds through what follows in due method and order, enumerating the sequence of the things that came into being.

But these things could not otherwise be set forth by discourse, unless it produced their signification through the names that make them known.

Since, then, it is written that 'God called the light Day,' we must understand that God made out of the light a 'day,' which is something other according to its own definition.

For you could not render the same account of light and of day; rather, light is that which is conceived by contrast with darkness, while day is a certain measure of the interval that is in the light.

—thereby naming a corresponding delimitation of the darkness.

Our argument, therefore, stands firm throughout, even if it has not been framed with technical skill according to the figures of dialectic, showing that God is the maker of things, not of bare words.

For names are attached to things not for His sake, but for our sake.

For otherwise it would not be possible for our memory to be preserved without confusion, unless the signification of names distinguished from one another the things stored up in the understanding.

But to God all things are present, and He has no need of memory, since all things are encompassed and beheld by His all-discerning power.

What need, then, has He of word or name, when the very wisdom and power in Him comprehends the nature of beings unconfused and distinct? Therefore all things that are and subsist are from God, but for the sake of our own guidance the names that signify things are added to the things that are.

And whoever says that these come to be according to what suits the customs of men will in no way transgress against the doctrine of providence.

For we do not say that the nature of beings comes to be from us, but the names.

The Hebrew names heaven in one way and the Canaanite in another, yet each conceives it in the same manner, neither of them being in any doubt about the understanding of the underlying thing on account of the difference of the sounds.

But the exceedingly scrupulous will-worship of these wise men—whereby, if it were granted that the words applied to things come from men, they establish that men are more authoritative than God—is proved to be something vain and insubstantial, and this by the very example that Moses has recorded for us.

For who was it that gave Moses himself his appellation? Was it not the daughter of Pharaoh, who named him from what had happened? For 'Moses' means 'water' in the Egyptian tongue.

For when, in accordance with the tyrant's decree, the parents placed the infant in an ark and gave him to the streams (for so some of the historians have related the events concerning him), and it, borne by divine will upon the eddy of the waters, was carried to the bank and became a chance find of the queen, who at that very time was making her body radiant in the bath—then, since the child had been gained by her out of the water, it is said that she gave the child the name as a memorial of the encounter; and God Himself did not decline to use this name of His servant, nor did He judge it unworthy to leave the naming given by the barbarian woman to stand authoritatively upon the prophet.

So, before this, Jacob, having taken hold of his brother's heel, was called 'supplanter' from the posture in which he was born together with him.

For those who have understood such matters teach that the interpretation of 'Jacob,' when rendered into the Greek tongue, bears this meaning.

And Perez, again, the midwife named from what had occurred at the birth, and no one, according to Eunomius, was jealous of her as being more authoritative than the authority of God.

But indeed to the patriarchs also their mothers assign the names—Reuben and Simeon and Levi, and to all those following in like manner—and no one, according to the present scribbler, appeared in those times as a guardian of divine providence, so as to prevent the women, by the imposition of names, from becoming more authoritative than God.

And why should one recount from the history the particulars—the Water of Contradiction, and the Place of Mourning, and the Hill of Foreskins, and the Valley of the Cluster, and the Field of Blood, and all such names, which were imposed by men yet are often mentioned even in the person of God—by which it is possible to learn that neither is the signification made upon things through words above human dignity, nor does the power of the divine nature derive its testimony from these?

But the rest of the drivel which he has babbled against the truth, as having no force against our doctrines, I shall pass over, judging it superfluous to linger over vain things.

—of cares, so as to expend one's zeal upon senseless words, and to contend against those who say: 'You declare the care of men to be more authoritative and more lordly than the guardianship of God, and you transfer to His providence the negligence which troubles those who are more careless.' These are, word for word, the utterance of the one who slanders us.

But I consider it all one to busy myself with such matters as to occupy myself with the dreams of old women.

For to think that the dignity of rule and lordship is preserved for the divine nature in the impress of certain sounds, and that the great guardianship of God is shown in this—and again that God is negligent and slights the providence befitting Him, and that we slander Him, because men, having received the rational faculty from God, then use words at their own discretion for the indication of things—what else is such a thing but an old wife's tale or the dream of men in a drunken stupor? For the true power and authority and rule and lordship of God, at least according to our reckoning, does not have its being in syllables—else everyone whosoever, becoming an inventor of words, would come into equal honour with God—but boundless ages, and the beauties of the cosmos, and the radiance of the luminaries, and the wonders upon land and sea, and the hosts of angels, and the supramundane powers, and whatever else in the region above we hear from Scripture to exist through riddling images: these are the things that bear witness to God as above all power.

But one who attests a sound of voice to things that are naturally capable of speaking will in no way commit impiety against Him who gave the voice.

For we do not think this any great thing—to discover sounds that signify things.

For that creature to which Scripture, in the historical account of the creation, gave the name 'man' for the moulded being that is like us—him Job calls 'mortal,' and some of those outside call him 'phos' (mortal man) and others 'merops,' to say nothing of the variations of this name according to nation.

Do we, then, bring their honours into equality with God, because those men too invented certain sounds equivalent to the appellation of 'man,' by which the same subject is likewise indicated? But this idle talk, as I said before, we must let go, and put in no account the succeeding revilings, in which he says that we lie against the divine oracles, and with all licence bring false charges both against all else and against God Himself.

But let us pass on in our discourse to what remains.

He sets forth again a statement of the teacher which runs thus.

'In a similar way and no differently have we been taught the use of conceptual thought (epinoia) by the divine word.'

'Our Lord Jesus Christ, disclosing the nature of the Godhead to men, indicates it by certain properties discerned about Him, calling Himself Door and Bread and Way and Vine and Shepherd and Light.' Now the things spoken by him in insult against us upon these points (for so dialectic has taught him to contend with his opponents), I think it fitting to overlook, and not to be at all disturbed at his puerile follies.

But let us thoroughly examine this sharp and inescapable saying, which is put forward for the overthrow of our argument.

'Which of the saints,' says he, 'is there who testifies that these names are said of the Lord according to conception (epinoia)?' 'And who forbids it,' I would say to him, 'you who judge it blasphemous to regard the use of names as being in conception? For if he says that the not-being-said is a proof of its being forbidden, he will assuredly also concede that the not-being-forbidden is a sign of its being permitted.'

Is the Lord named by these names, or does Eunomius deny even this? If, on the one hand, he denies that these words are said of Christ, we have prevailed without a fight.

For what more conspicuous victory could there be than to show clearly that our adversary is fighting against God, by his rejecting the divine utterances of the Gospel? But if he truly confesses that Christ is named these things, let him state the manner in which these names are piously fitted to the Only-begotten.

Did he conceive His essence through the 'axe'? Is the property of the Only-begotten's Godhead signified through the 'Door,' or through each of the others—that I may not bring a great crowd upon my discourse by reckoning up all the names? None of these names is the nature of the Only-begotten, nor His Godhead, nor a property of His essence; and yet He is named these things, and the appellation has its proper authority.

For it is not pious to suppose that anything in the divine utterances is idle and without signification.

Therefore let him state the reason, if he rejects their being said according to conception, whence these names are fitted to God.

For we, on our part, say this: that since the Lord provides for human life in manifold ways, each kind of benefaction is fittingly made known through each of such names, the providence and activity discerned in Him passing over into the form of a name.

And such a name is said by us to be named by conception.

But if this is not agreeable to our opponents, let it stand however it seems best to anyone.

But he who is deaf to the riddling images of Scripture speaks against what is said.

For if he had been instructed in the divine utterances, he would assuredly have known that the Lord is called by Scripture, according to various conceptions, also 'a curse,' and 'sin,' and 'a maddened heifer,' and 'a lion's whelp,' and 'a bereaved she-bear,' and 'a leopard,' and such things—the holy and God-bearing men aptly making clear by these names the aim of the meaning toward which they looked, even if these names seem in some way to be defamatory according to their surface appearance.

And unless one grant that each of these is piously predicated of God according to some conception, the expression will not be clear of the more impious construction.

And it would be a long task to set forth and demonstrate concerning them all how these both are defamatory according to the common supposition drawn from the surface impression, and how the account of conception appropriates the names to the reverence due to God.

But let us proceed to the connected sequence, taking up the discourse again.

Such names are said of the Lord, and no one of those conversant with the God-inspired Scriptures would gainsay that these are said.

What then? Does he define the sounds as significative of the very nature? Then he says that the divine nature is something manifold and much-compounded, displaying its variegated character according to the differences of the things signified in the names.

For the signification of 'bread' and of 'lion' is not the same, nor that of 'door' and of 'heifer,' nor of 'axe' and of 'water'; but it is possible to render for each of the names a proper definition that in no respect shares in common with the others.

Therefore they do not signify nature; yet no one would dare to say that the appellation of the names is invalid and without signification.

If, then, they are said, but not according to nature, and everything said by Scripture is assuredly authoritative and is fittingly applied, what other account remains than the mode according to conception, by which such utterances have been assigned to the Only-begotten God in a manner befitting Him? For it is clear that, with a view to the variety of His activities, the Divine is named according to various significations, so that we may understand Him as being thus named.

What harm, then, does the cooperation of our mind toward the understanding of things happening do to the more pious conceptions—which we for our part call 'conception (epinoia),' but if anyone should wish to call it something else, we shall not quarrel? But he does not let go, like clever combatants, of this inescapable hold against us, and speaks thus, word for word, that 'these names exist by human conception and are said according to the conception of certain persons—things which none of the apostles nor evangelists taught.'

And after this irresistible assault, he brings forward that sacred utterance of his, once more spewing out against us, with his tongue schooled in such things, the malodorous reviling.

'For to bring forward,' says he, 'the homonymy that arises from analogy into human conception is the work of a soul justly deprived of a sound mind, and of one that scrutinizes the words of the Lord with a diseased understanding and by a certain detected habit.'

The argument is skilfully brought by him to a conclusion suited to his aim.

Who could still stand up for the doctrine of conception, when such a stench pours forth from his mouth upon those who attempt to say anything? Must we, then, on this account abstain from the joint examination of the argument with him, lest he should stir up this drain of reviling against us also? Or is it the mark of the faint-hearted to be roughened in retort against childish ravings? Therefore we must allow the insolent fellow to use his manner as he pleases.

But we must take up his argument again, so that from that quarter also there may arise an alliance for the truth.

He made mention of analogy, and conceived the homonymy that arises from it.

From where did he learn these things, and from whom the words? Moses did not say them, he did not hear them from prophets and apostles, the evangelists kept silence about such utterances.

There is no Scripture that teaches one to learn these things.

Whence, then, does he get his manner of speaking thus? Is not such an account—one that calls the particular signification of the meaning 'analogy'—a discovery of the understanding of the one who speaks it? How, then, does he not perceive that he is using, as allies in the war, those very things against which he wages war? For he wages war against the doctrine of conception, himself, through the words of conception, establishing that nothing ought to be said according to conception.

'But no one,' says he, 'of the saints taught this.'

But you—to which of the ancients can you refer the word 'ingeneracy (agennesia),' and the claim that this very name is predicated of the essence of God, or rather that the very ingenerate is the essence? Or is it permitted to you, in matters where some impiety is to be concluded, both to innovate and to devise the utterances that please you, but if anything be said by another for the overthrow of impiety, to deprive your opponent of the licence? You would then have laid hold of a great tyranny, if you should secure this authority for yourself: that the very things you forbid others, you alone may do, and that the very things which you yourself venture upon at your own discretion, you may debar the rest from doing.

By an ordinance you reject that these names are predicated of Christ according to conception, on the ground that none of the saints prescribed that they ought so to be said.

How, then, do you legislate that the divine essence is to be characterized by the word 'ingenerate,' which none of the saints is shown to have handed down? For if this be the criterion of the correctness of words—to utter only those things which the God-inspired word of Scripture has suggested—then the word 'ingenerate' would have to be blotted out from your writings, since none of the saints established this utterance.

but rather, on account of the meaning that resides in this appellation, you accept the word.

And we likewise, on account of the meaning that resides in it, have accepted the term of conception (epinoia).

Therefore we shall either exclude both usages, or neither; and whichever of these comes about, by both alike we shall prevail.

For if 'ungeneracy' be passed over in complete silence, then every voice of the adversaries raised against the truth is quenched together with it, and the glory befitting the only-begotten God will shine forth in the eyes of all, since there will be no name derived from counter-distinction to belittle the majesty of the Lord.

But if both remain, then in this way too the truth will prevail along with us, once the name of 'ungeneracy' has been transferred from essence to conception.

But so long as he does not remove the word 'ungenerate' from his own arguments, let our Pharisee admonish himself not to look first at the mote in our eye before he has cast out from his own eyes the beam that lies within them.

But God, he says, has imparted the most honourable of names even to the feeblest of earthly things, without at the same time imparting an equal share of their dignities; and to the most exalted things he has given the meanest of names, without the natural meanness being transferred along with the names.

These things have been stated in his very words;

thus have they been recorded by them just as by us.

But if they expound nothing more than what is understood at first glance, I do not know which of the two one should reckon more pitiable than the other—those who utter such things, or those who lend their ears to such things.

'To the feeblest of earthly things,' he says, 'he imparted the most honourable of names, without imparting an equal share of their dignities.'

Let us then examine the meaning of what has been said.

The feeblest things, he says, are deemed worthy of the bare appellation of honourable things, not being in their nature what they are named; and he says that this is the work of God—to belie the inferior nature by the more honourable title.

And conversely he says that God fits the more dishonourable words to things that by nature excel, without the nature being transferred along with the appellation.

But that what is being said may become as clear as possible to us, the absurdity will be demonstrated in the very cases themselves.

If someone were to call a man renowned for every virtue 'licentious,' or conversely were to call one notorious for equal vice 'good and orderly,' would such a person be reckoned by those of sound mind to be in his right senses, or to have any regard for the truth—making his appellations interchangeable with their opposites, while the nature does not bear witness together with the signification of the names? For my part, I think not.

Yet this man asserts that these things are done by God—things which accord neither with the common notions of the mind nor with the testimonies of Scripture.

For in the ordinary usage of our life it belongs only to those deranged by drunkenness or delirium to go astray with respect to names and not to use words according to the signification of the things themselves—but, should it so happen, to call a man 'dog,' and again to fit to a dog the appellation of a man.

But the divine Scripture is so far from consenting to this confusion, that one may even hear the prophecy openly protesting against such things.

'Woe to him,' it says, 'who calls light darkness and darkness light, who puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.'

With what in view, then, does he think it necessary to ascribe this absurdity to his own god? Let those who have been initiated by him into the unspeakable mysteries tell us: what do they judge to be the feeblest of earthly things, which is dignified by God with the most honourable of titles?

The feeblest of existing things are those living creatures whose generation has its constitution from the putrefaction of moisture; but the most honourable of existing things is virtue and holiness and whatever is dear to God.

Are flies, then, and gnats and frogs, and creatures whose generation is from dung, honoured with the appellation of the holy and of virtue, so that they are dignified with the honourable of names, yet do not share in an equal portion of the dignities, as Eunomius says? But we have never yet heard such a thing—that these feeble creatures have been named with the more magnificent of titles, or that what is great and honourable in its nature has been insulted by the appellation of one of these.

Let them tell us, then, whether each of these received its appellation from its opposite; or whether, in the case of those who are attested for the worse—such as Nabal the Carmelite, and Pharaoh the Egyptian, and Abimelech the foreigner, and all who are remembered for their wickedness—they were honoured by the divine voice with the more auspicious of appellations.

It is not so; rather, as things are in their nature and in truth, so they are judged and named by God, being called not contrariwise to what they are, but so that what is signified may become as clear as possible, being declared by their proper appellations.

...the appellations, with the nature crying out against the appellations, and with what is honourable being insulted by sharing a name in common with the base among existing things.

And a man—one of those who look toward virtue—having sometimes strayed even involuntarily somewhat outside the truth, sinks down out of shame; but does he think it an honour befitting God that things should appear belied by their appellations? The prophecies do not bear such witness concerning the divine nature.

How, then, is he truthful who belies things and, in the outward showings of names, alters the truth? 'The Lord God is upright,' he is again addressed by the same prophet.

Is it, then, a mark of uprightness to dignify base things with the most honourable of names, and, while giving the bare appellation, to begrudge to the one who has received the title the dignity manifested in the word? This is the testimony of these theologians concerning their new god.

This is the goal of that much-vaunted dialectical acuteness: to show that God himself both takes delight in deceptions and is not free from the passion of envy.

For it belongs to deception not to name feeble things as they are in nature and dignity, but from the more excellent things to bestow appellations upon them in vain, without transferring the power along with the title of the things named.

And it belongs to envy, being able to bestow the more honourable lot upon those named for the better, to shrink from the favour, judging as if it were one's own loss the prosperity of the feeble.

But I would counsel those at least who have sense that, even if the god of these Gnostics is forced by the violence of their syllogisms to be such, they should not think that the true God, the only-begotten God, is likewise, but should look to the truth of the underlying realities, and attest to each what is according to its worth, and name things from the things themselves.

But what does this treatise-writer intend by what he has said, and toward what aim does his argument look? For let no one suppose this—that out of a poverty of words, so that he might seem to spin out his discourse to great length, he has stretched out his nonsense by stammering over certain unintelligible things.

But there is in the senselessness of what he has said something suspect with reference to his heresy.

For to say that the most honourable of names are attached even to the feeblest things, even though these do not happen to share equally in the dignity according to nature, is for him a certain contrivance secretly preparing the sequel of his blasphemy.

...so that those who learn his teachings might learn this from him: that even if the only-begotten is named God and wisdom and power and light and truth and judge and king and God over all and great God and prince of peace and father of the age to come and all such things, the honour extends only as far as the name.

For he does not share also in the dignity which the power of the names manifests.

For many other of the feeblest things too have been honoured with surpassing appellations, of which the naming possesses loftiness, but the nature is not altered so as to match the grandeur of the appellation.

...a participation in honour to inferior things, without an equality according to worth following upon the naming—so that, having learned all things concerning the Son, as many as belong to the lofty signification, we should suppose that the honour in the words is attested to him only as far as the name, and that he is without share in the equal portion according to worth, according to the technical reasoning in what has been said.

But indeed, by lingering over these senseless matters, I seem to be secretly granting something to my adversaries.

For by setting the truth against the vanity of what has been said, I seem to be wearying those who converse with my discourse before the battle over the more essential matters.