Greek original · 115 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:2073–1:2187 (6569 verses in all)
These things, then, however they may stand, must be left to the more attentive of the hearers, while we must transfer our discourse to the matters that lie before us.
These things, however, have been ordained in this manner, not because the conception of men obtained authority over the names—for who says this, that what is not contemplated according to its own subsistence has authority over any matter? For to act with authority belongs only to those governed by some proper deliberate choice, whereas conception is an activity of our intellect and depends upon the deliberate choice of those who speak, not subsisting in itself, but having its subsistence in the impulse of those who discourse—but rather, he says, it is God himself, the creator of all things, who fittingly harmonizes the appellations to each of the things named, by the measures and laws of relation and activity and analogy.
For if he now testifies that the names fit the underlying realities appropriately in God's case, how does he in the earlier passages make out that God bestows the loftier of the names upon dishonourable things, without imparting the dignity manifested in the signification of the names, and again insults things great in their nature with dishonourable words, the nature not being transferred along with the lowliness of the terms? But perhaps we do wrong in subjecting this unintelligible composition of terms of his to such charges.
For these things are altogether alien to every mind—not only, I say, to the right mind that leads to piety, but they are found by those who know how to examine accurately not to partake in any way of any reasoning at all.
Since, then, after the likeness of the sea-lungs (jellyfish), the phenomenon seems to have a certain bulk, but the bulk is a phlegm loathsome to look upon and yet more loathsome to take into one's hands, for this reason, judging silence most fitting toward vain things, I shall pass by what he has said in silence.
For by what law are activity and analogy and relation governed, and who is the lawgiver who prescribes to God the laws and modes of analogy and relation—it were better that this should remain unexamined, than that, through zeal about such things, one should both produce nausea in the hearers and lead the discourse away from more serious matters.
For just as some smoke or mist deepens and troubles the air in which it takes its constitution, and hinders the sight in respect of its natural activity, yet is not so condensed upon itself as to allow one who wishes to grasp it and enclose it in his palms and offer resistance to the one striking it—so too, one who said something of this sort about this solemn treatise would not miss the true likeness.
Great is the drivel that has been labored over in a swollen and inflamed discourse, and to one not very keen-sighted in soul it seems, like a haze to one looking from afar, to possess a certain substance and semblance;
but if someone comes close to it and lays hold of what has been said with a scrutinizing mind, the thoughts, like smoke, dissolve from his grasp and are scattered into non-being, and do not, through any solidity and resistance, receive the striking argument.
For the heresy is easily open to slander in either direction among fault-finders: whether, leaping over the empty verbiage as over some ravine, we direct our discourse to the downhill and easy course, having taken our stand through refutation against those things that seem to have some strength against the truth; or whether we extend our battle against vain things to the whole of the nonsense.
But if we lay hold only of those things that seem to have some strength against the truth, we shall furnish our opponents with a pretext for accusation, as having passed over some of the things that do not admit of refutation.
Since, then, of the two courses set before us—that of going through the whole of the discourse, and that of running only over the more necessary points—the one is burdensome to the hearers, the other suspect to the slanderers, I say it is well to take some middle course and to escape, as far as possible, the blame on either side.
What, then, is the method? Having cut short, as far as possible, the great heap of all the things labored over by him in vain, we shall run over the thoughts summarily by means of a few points, so as neither to plunge deep into the senseless things without purpose, nor to leave any of the things said unexamined.
The whole of his discourse, then, is occupied with this endeavour: contentiously striving to show that the Deity discourses after the human fashion, and that he himself, the maker of things, fits the words significative of things to the things themselves.
And on this account, contending against the one who said that such names, which we have received from God, belong to the rational nature, he asserts that he both misses the truth and does not maintain his own hypothesis; and having brought this reproach against him, he employs such reasonings as these toward a demonstration.
Basil said, he asserts, that after the first notion concerning the matter which arises in us, the finer and more accurate examination of what has been conceived is called conception (epinoia).
And by such a contrivance he refutes the argument, as he thinks, on the ground that in cases where there is no first and second notion, nor one finer and more accurate than another, there could be, he says, no room for what is according to conception.
For our teacher did not make this the definition of every conception, but, having made as it were a certain particular subdivision of the things contemplated according to conception, so as not to bring a great crowd of matters into the discourse, having clarified this part, he left it to those of sense to reason out the whole from the part.
And just as one who says that 'animal' is predicated of many things differing in species would not be convicted as having missed the truth by bringing man specifically into his description, nor would anyone correct him as having fallen away from what is real, unless he assigned to a bird and a quadruped and an aquatic creature the same account that he declared concerning man—so too, the account of what is contemplated according to conception being so manifold and various, it would be no refutation to say that that is not properly conception because there is also another kind; so that even if some other species of conception be contemplated, what was previously assigned has not been erred.
When Moses beholds God in light, and John names Him the true Light, and Paul too, illumined by that light in his first divine appearing and afterward hearing the voices that came from the light, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting' — is such a one, then, not competent as a witness? And as for the bread, let him read the Gospel: that the food which came from Moses, supplied to Israel from heaven, was taken up by the Lord Himself as a type of the Lord.
For 'Moses did not give you the bread; but my Father gives the true bread' — calling Himself the one who came down from heaven and gives life to the world.
What then follows, if the Lord Himself named Himself by these titles? Since among the Saviour's names there is not a first and a second, nor is one more subtle or more exact than another — for He knows all things together and with equal exactness — it is impossible to fit to any of them the argument he has stated concerning conception (epinoia).
but I beg those who read to grant me pardon, if we do not pass over as incomprehensible even the manifest emptiness of his statements — not that we take delight in the unseemliness of the writer (for what profit does the folly of our opponents, once exposed, bring to us?), but that the truth, establishing itself throughout, may advance as if along a road.
Since, he says, the Lord applied these appellations to Himself, conceiving nothing as first, nor second, nor anything more subtle or more exact, it is not possible to say that these names arise from conception (epinoia).
How does he remember his own aim? How does he know the arguments against which he has set up his war? Our teacher recalled one of those matters that run alongside the customary usage toward the interpretation of conception, and, having made his meaning plain in the lower instances, he thus leads the reader on to the contemplation of the argument above.
For he said that wheat, considered in itself, appears to be one single thing according to its subsistence, but that in relation to the various properties contemplated in it, it changes its designations — becoming seed, and fruit, and food, and being named by as many names as the things it becomes.
In like manner, he says, the Lord too is in Himself whatever He is according to His nature; but being named together with the differences of His activities, He does not hold one single appellation over all things, but according to each notion that arises in us from His activity, He receives the corresponding name.
In what, then, is our argument refuted by what has been said — the argument which stated that it is possible for many appellations to be applied, according to the differences of activities and the relation to the things effected, to the Son of God who is one according to the underlying subject, just as wheat, being one, is apportioned into different appellations from the various notions concerning it? How, then, does he overturn what has been said, when he asserts that Christ speaks these names concerning Himself? For the question was not who it was that assigned the name, but the inquiry set before us was about the meaning of the names — whether they indicate nature, or whether they are named conceptually from the activities.
But this keen and comprehensive fellow, in overturning the account rendered concerning conception — the account that said it is possible to find many appellations for one and the same underlying subject according to the significations drawn from the activities — vigorously employs against us the battle-cry that these utterances were not applied to the Lord by any other.
What, then, has this to do with the present endeavor? Because the names are spoken by the Lord, will he for that reason not grant that these are names, nor appellations, nor utterances signifying notions? For if he does not admit that these are names, then, with the abolition of the appellations, conception too is abolished together with them.
But once it is agreed that wheat has its designations according to the conception of the things contemplated concerning it, there was also established together with this the point that these utterances applied to the Lord are not indicative of nature, but that they subsist by the principle of conception in the things thought concerning Him.
But our adversary, out of great attentiveness, does not make his fight against what was laid down, but says that He named these things by Himself — much as if someone, seeking the interpretation of the name of Isaac, whether it is interpreted as 'laughter,' as some say, or whether the name signifies something else, and one of Eunomius's followers should knowingly answer that the appellation was given to the child by his mother;
'But that,' one might say, 'was not the question — from whom the appellation was procured — but rather what the meaning of the name is when rendered into our tongue.'
And so here too, the inquiry being whether the various things predicated of the Lord are said according to conception and do not carry the indication of His nature, the one who brings forward such a demonstration that the appellations are not contemplated in conception — namely, that they are spoken by the Lord Himself — how shall he be reckoned among the sober-minded, since he both wars against the truth and, for the war, employs such allies as make the one he opposes appear the stronger? Then, going on, as though the argument had been brought by him to his intended conclusion, he brings forward against us other charges more grievous than those already stated, as he says; and having lamented much and slandered the argument beforehand, and having violently roused the hearer against what is about to be said — in which he accuses us of establishing certain even more impious things, as though we not only attach to our conceptions the appellations allotted by God (though he does not say what this allotment of the appellations is, nor when and how it took place), but also as confounding all matters and bringing into one and the same thing both the essence and the activity of the Only-begotten, though he neither discussed this very point nor demonstrated how the activity is established by us as identical to the essence — at last he brings forward the very crown of his charges, speaking thus in these words:
'Now, however,' he says, 'passing on from these things, he surrounds even the God who is over all with the utmost blasphemies, employing disjointed statements and examples that fall utterly wide of the mark.'
But I, even before the matters examined, thought fit to learn this: from what our arguments are 'disjointed,' and from what our examples 'fall wide' — not that I have any real need to learn these things, but rather to show the rubbishy and undiscriminating character of the writer's phrases, with which, clattering away at the little old women among men and preening himself before the ears of those who admire such things with the pomp of his petty diction, he sets up this discourse as a monument against himself before the educated, and does not perceive it.
For would that the charges against him extended only thus far, and that he were thought to err in nothing concerning the faith, but to offend only in the mere delivery of his discourse — for then it would be nothing to him, as regards praise or reproach, whether he had his diction thus or otherwise.
'In the case of wheat,' he says, 'and of the Lord, having exercised the conceptions in various ways, in like manner he says that the most holy essence of God too admits of the conceptions in various ways.'
This is the most grievous of the charges, and upon this he beforehand played out those weighty tragic accusations against us, imputing impiety and absurdity and all such things to what was said.
What, then, is the proof of the impiety? Eunomius said certain things about wheat — clarifying these commonplace matters, familiar to all off-hand: how it comes to be, and how, once brought to maturity through its fruit, it nourishes, being generated and increased and administered by certain natural powers;
'But how,' he says, 'is it not absurd — nay rather, unlawful — to compare the Unbegotten to these things?' To what things? To wheat, he says, and to the Only-begotten God.
Do you see his piety? He establishes that the paltry grain of wheat and the Only-begotten God stand at an equal distance from the dignity of the Unbegotten God.
'For how,' he says, 'is it not absurd — nay rather, unlawful — to compare the Unbegotten to these things?' And having said this, he brings in, on the footing of equal dignity, the argument concerning wheat and the Lord, judging it equally absurd to compare God to either of these.
so that, according to this wise theologian, the Maker of the ages, who holds fast the whole nature of existing things, has been shown to stand on an equal footing with the tiniest seed, if indeed both He and the wheat fall equally short in the comparison with God.
And it would be timely to examine also the very structure of his construction toward the blasphemy — in what way it is joined together with itself in his discourse by way of logical sequence.
For having said that it is absurd to compare God to wheat and to Christ, he says concerning the wheat that God is not, in likeness to these things, susceptible to change; but concerning the Only-begotten, having kept silent about His not being susceptible to change, and by this having clearly indicated the lowliness of His dignity, in that He ought not, like the wheat, to be compared to God, he left the argument hanging in the air, having by no other reasoning established, in this part, the incomparability of the Son to the Father, on the ground that what had been contemplated concerning the grain sufficed to indicate as well the Son's deviation, in the direction of lowliness, from the Father.
As for me, whether some activity is the life which truly is, working itself, and whether the ever-living and the never being dissolved into corruption are the same in meaning, I do not yet add to the argument, but shall reserve it for its own proper places.
But that the meaning of incorruptibility is one, conceived in the same way alike concerning the Father and the Son, and that in no respect does the incorruptibility of the Father differ from the incorruptibility of the Son — no variation according to incorruptibility being found either by any diminution and intensification, or by any other mode of difference — this I say is both timely now and always to affirm, so that by this the argument may have no room to attest to the Father, by the notion of incorruptibility, anything incommunicable with respect to the Son.
What, then, has he learned, that he attests to the Unbegotten God alone that His incorruptibility is not from activity, as though by this showing the deviation of the Father with respect to the Only-begotten? For if he supposes his created God to be corruptible, he rightly demonstrates the natural deviation by the difference of the corruptible from the incorruptible;
but if each alike is incapable of corruption, and neither the more nor the less is apprehended in the natural incorruptibility, how does he show the incomparability of the Father with respect to the Only-begotten Son? Or what does he intend by attesting that the incorruptibility of the Father is not from activity? But he uncovers his aim in the argument that follows after these things.
If, then, it is the same for Him to be called Father and Creator, in that the activity becomes for Him the cause of both names, then it is altogether necessary that the effects of the activities too be of the same kind as one another, according to the very fact of being alike from activity.
It is not possible for an activity productive of some thing to subsist by itself, on its own, unless something receives the motion of the activity — as, for instance, we say that the one who forges is active, but that the material laid out for the craft is acted upon.
Necessarily, then, these have a certain relation to one another — the active and the passive power — and if the one of them be separated in thought, neither would the remaining one subsist by itself.
What, then, is established from this? If the activity productive of some thing does not subsist by itself when there is no underlying subject that is acted upon, and the Father, as these men say, is nothing other than activity, then through these arguments the Only-begotten Son is demonstrated to be passible, being molded to the motion of the activity that gives Him subsistence.
For just as we say that the Maker of the universe, having laid down a certain passive and pliant matter as the object of His creative essence, made it active — in the case of things sensible, artfully applying to the underlying matter the varied and manifold qualities toward the fashioning of each of the things that come to be, but in the case of things intelligible, in another manner, shaping the underlying subject not by qualities but by purposive impulses — so, of necessity, if one should define fatherhood as an activity, he will not otherwise demonstrate the subsistence of the Son than as fashioned out of some matter that is altogether passive.
For if it be reckoned impassible, then the impassibility will altogether be a resistance to the one who acts; and when the activity is hindered, there will altogether not be that which is effected.
So that, of two things, one: either through these arguments they will make the essence of the Only-begotten passible, so that it may receive the activity, or, shrinking from this because of the manifest impiety, they will establish that it does not exist at all.
Therefore the one who names the Son the effect of some activity marks Him off as one of the passible things — as many as have had their coming-forth through activity; or, if he should deny the passion, he will deny His subsistence along with the passion.
But since, according to each of the alternatives set forth in the dilemma, the impiety is clear — both to say that He does not exist and to suppose Him passible — the truth is made manifest, shining forth through the removal of the absurdities.
For if He both truly exists and is not passible, it is clear that He is not from activity, but, as is fitting, is the true God from the true God, the Father, having been eternally and impassibly effulged and shone forth.
But what other of the notions befitting God does not belong to the very essence of the Son — the just, the good, the eternal, that which is incapable of any evil, that which is unbounded in everything conceived according to the good? Is there anyone who says that any of the good things is an acquisition to the divine nature, and not rather that whatever is good takes its starting-point from thence and is contemplated in it — as the prophet says, 'Because if anything is good, it is His, and if anything is fair, it is from Him'? And he joins to this also that He is unbegotten according to essence.
But as for me, if he says this while conceiving it thus — that the essence of the Father is unbegottenly — I agree with what is said and do not resist the doctrine;
That, therefore, the notion of unbegottenness is one thing, and the account of the divine essence is another, the refutation is drawn from the very things said by him.
In such cases, since there is no difference in nature among the several terms, we say that the names are of equal force with one another, and that the three are one in their underlying subject, namely the humanity that is delineated by these names.
If, then, the Godhead consists in this—in unbegottenness and incorruptibility and essence—then by every necessity, upon the removal of any one of these, the Godhead too is done away with along with it.
For just as one would not call that which is not rational either capable of laughter or a man, so too in the case of these three names—I mean the unbegotten, the incorruptible, and the essence—if the Godhead is characterized by them, then whenever any one of the three is absent, the very account of the Godhead is entirely cancelled by whatever is lacking.
If, then, essence and incorruptibility are the same as unbegottenness—the things by which the Godhead is made known—then in Him to whom unbegottenness does not belong, essence and incorruptibility are altogether taken away as well; and when these are not present, the Godhead too, by every necessity, will be removed.
For if essence and incorruptibility and unbegottenness are said of God according to the same signification, then this new maker-of-gods is clearly shown to regard the Son whom he has created as corruptible—because he does not acknowledge Him as unbegotten—and not only this, but also as utterly without subsistence, because he cannot see in Godhead Him in whom the unbegotten and incorruptible is not contemplated, if indeed he thinks the unbegotten and incorruptible to be identical with the essence.
But since destruction is manifest in these positions, let someone counsel these wretched men to turn to what remains in the argument, and not to wrangle openly against the truth, but rather to agree that the signification of each of these names is peculiar to itself—which one would better grasp by means of the contrasting terms.
For we discover the unbegotten by its contrast with the begotten, and the incorruptible is known by its juxtaposition with the corruptible, and the essence is contemplated by its distinction from that which is without subsistence.
For just as that which was not begotten is called unbegotten, and that which is not corrupted incorruptible, so also we name essence that which is not non-existent; and conversely, just as we call the begotten not unbegotten, and the corruptible not incorruptible, so too we do not say that the essence is non-existent.
Accordingly, essence is understood in respect of a thing's being, while the corruptible or incorruptible is understood in respect of what sort of thing it is, and the begotten or unbegotten in respect of how it exists.
And it seems good to me, having passed over the intervening nausea (for so, I think, one ought to name his senseless assaults against the concept of conception), to dwell upon the thought that lies before us.
For all that this speech-writer has vomited up, like some phlegmatic humor, against the teacher's reflections concerning conception, is of such a kind as to present no danger to those who encounter it, even should someone happen to be exceedingly foolish and easily led astray.