Against Eunomius 1 part 21/56

As, then, the endlessness of the life is named incorruptible, so its beginninglessness is named unbegotten, we contemplating these things by our conception (epinoia). The reviling, then, which he has made as a preamble to the contemplation of what has been said, we shall again pass over — a certain substitution of seed, and a leader of sowing, and the illogicality of his censure, and whatever else, treading on emptiness with his insatiable tongue, he recounts.

But that on which he attempts to slander, calumniating the argument — to this we too shall turn.

He undertakes to convict us of not saying that the Divine is incorruptible by nature.

But we estrange from the nature only those things which come to be acquired by certain beings and are then lost (acquired and un-acquired);

yet those things without which the underlying subject has no nature to be conceived — how could anyone be charged with separating the nature from itself? If, then, our argument advanced that incorruptibility is something supervening upon God, as though at some time not belonging to Him or as though not going to belong at some time, there would be occasion to say these things in slander against us.

But if our argument defines that the Divine ever exists in the same manner, and is always what it now is, and that nothing accrues to it by any increase or addition of things not present, but that it exists always in everything conceived and spoken of according to the good, how are we slandered as not testifying incorruptibility to belong to it by nature? But he pretends to have taken his occasions for such a slander of the argument from the saying read out by our teacher, as though we furnished incorruptibility to God from the juxtaposition of the ages.

If, then, our own statement were brought forward by us, the argument would perhaps be suspect for the sake of defense, as though we were now correcting ourselves and transposing the culpable utterances toward the unimpeachable;

but since our own words are quoted by our enemy, what stronger proof of the truth could there be than the very testimony of those who dispute with us? How, then, does our argument stand — the one which Eunomius brings forward for slander against us? 'Whenever,' he says, 'we cast our mind upon the ages to come, we have named that which is boundless and infinite and apprehensible by no end — incorruptible.' Does Eunomius, then, suppose 'to furnish' (porisai) to be the same as 'to name' (prosagoreusai)? And who is so far outside his right mind as to be ignorant of the distinctive connotations of these very words? For he furnishes who acquires for himself what did not belong to him, but he names who significantly designates what already is.

And who is so foolish as not to set beside the slander the very words slandered, and from the reading of both to detect the malice of the pamphleteer? Our argument names the incorruptible; that man accuses him who furnishes the incorruptibility.

What has 'to furnish' in common with 'to say'? Each man is justly held accountable from his own words, not made to bear censures out of what belongs to others.

But as it now stands, his bitterness accuses and looks toward us, yet, according to the true reckoning at least, it condemns no one but himself.

For if 'to furnish' incorruptibility to God is culpable, and this is said by no one else except by himself alone, then the calumniator becomes his own accuser, slandering his own statement, not ours.

And concerning the name relating to unbegottenness, we for our part say that, just as the endlessness of the life is named incorruptible, so its beginninglessness is named unbegotten;

but this fellow says that we, from the ages, procure for Him the precedence over all begotten things.

I pass over the blasphemy — that he makes the Only-begotten God common with every begotten thing, by the all-embracing term bringing down the Son of God to conceptions of equal honor with everything that subsists through generation;

but I shall set before the more intelligent of the hearers, in this discourse, his inconceivable malice.

'Basil, from the ages, procures for God the precedence over all begotten things.'

What is this inconceivable empty utterance? Does a man become a procurer for God, and procure for Him through the ages the precedence? What is this vain emptiness of these baseless words — if the teacher said that what exceeds the interval-extension of the ages on either side of the divine Essence is signified by certain expressive names, in the case of Him who, as the Apostle said, has neither beginning of days nor end of life, so that by the different words the difference of the conception is signified, and for this reason that which is above all beginning is called beginningless and unbegotten, while that which is circumscribed by no end is named immortal and incorruptible? These things he is not ashamed to write as 'furnishing' and 'procurement' and the like.

But he even says that the ages are bisected by us, as though he had not read what he cited, or as though composing his own argument among those forgetful of what is said.

What does the teacher say? When we consider the things before creation and, traversing the ages in thought, reflect upon the uncircumscribed character of eternal life, we signify such a notion by the appellation 'unbegotten'; and when we turn our understanding to what comes afterward and apprehend the life of God as surpassing the ages, we interpret this same understanding by the words 'endless' and 'incorruptible.'

Where in what has been said does the argument divide the ages, if we proclaim by such words and names as lie within our power the eternity of God—an eternity that is displayed equally under every approach, that holds itself uniform on every side, and that is measured by no interval? For since human life, moving by intervals and proceeding from some beginning toward some end, runs its course and this present life of ours is divided into past and expected, so that the one is hoped for and the other remembered, for this reason, conceiving in accordance with our own condition both the past and the expected of the interval's extension, we speak thus also of the transcendent Nature by a certain abuse of language—not as though God, through His own life, left some interval behind Himself and again journeyed on in living toward what lies ahead, but because our comprehension, thinking of things with reference to our own nature, measures out the eternal by past and future, when it neither cuts off what lies behind, the notion proceeding into the infinity of the indefinite, nor announces ahead any composition or limit of the boundless life.

so that we are taught from both alike that every notion of interval is enclosed within the divine Nature, being bounded on every side by the infinity of Him who contains all things.

For Moses, looking to what comes afterward, says that He reigns 'unto the age and upon the age and yet beyond.'

But the wise Eunomius, having bidden farewell to teachers of such stature, says that we speak of one life as being without beginning, and another again as being endless, and that we split up the notion of God together with certain differences and distinctions of ages that are divided by their own diversity.

But that our contest with what he has said may not become long, we shall set forth his laborious effort in these matters just as it stands, untested and unexamined, since it is sufficient by the very things with which he busies himself about falsehood to make the truth more evident to the discerning.

For he asks us, as his discourse proceeds, what in the world we suppose the ages to be.

And yet it would be more just for such questions to be put to him by us.

For who is it that claims to have come to know the essence of God—who defines by his own understanding as comprehensible the things that are unattainable to us? Let him, then, who boasts of having grasped the things beyond, expound to us the natural constitution of the essence of the ages, and let him not too dreadfully brandish before us laymen this steep and dilemma-laden double-edge of a reply: that if we suppose the ages to be this, one absurdity ensues, and if the other, another.

For if you should call them eternal, he says, you will be Greeks and Valentinians and barbarians;

but if begotten, then, he says, you will no longer confess unbegottenness in God.

Oh, this irresistible and unopposable assault!

If anything is confessed to be begotten, O Eunomius, the confession of the Unbegotten will be annulled!

And where, then, have your technical arguments of the begotten against the unbegotten leaked away—those by which the unlikeness of the Son's essence to His Begetter was being constructed? For it seems, from what we are now taught, that the Father, contemplated in relation to the begotten, is not unlike Him in essence, but rather, on the whole, by the confession of unbegottenness is resolved into non-being—if indeed, should we call the ages begotten, we are led on to no longer confessing the Unbegotten.

But let us look at the necessity by which he compels us together to the assent of this absurdity.

'For those things,' he says, 'by whose juxtaposition beginninglessness accrues to God—these not existing, there will be nothing that is added.'

Oh, this mighty and inescapable grip!

How, as from the very center, he has bound us fast athletically with unbreakable knots!

By the juxtaposition of the ages, he says, unbegottenness accrues to God.

Accrues from whom? Who says this—that to Him who exists without beginning, unbegottenness accrues by acquisition through the juxtaposition of certain things? Neither the wording nor the sense of this absurdity is convicted in our discourses.

For the wording is its own advocate, containing nothing such as has been alleged against us;

and as for the meaning of what has been said, who could be reckoned a more trustworthy interpreter than the very fathers of the discourse? Therefore we are more entitled to say what we mean, when we define the life of God to be beyond the ages;

and we say these very things which have been stated in what preceded.

But he says that, since the juxtaposition of the ages does not exist, that which is added to God from it is impossible; and he says that unbegottenness has been added.

Let him tell us also by whom such a thing has been added to God.

If, then, it is by Himself, he would be ridiculous in charging his own folly against our discourses;

but if it is by us, let him read out the passage, and we shall accept the accusation.

For it is plainly the playthings of children, who set up certain constructions of buildings in the sand.

For having strung together a certain periodic clause and having with difficulty made his way through to its end, he demonstrates the same life to be both without beginning and without end, fulfilling our very prayer by such earnestness.

For nothing else is said by us than that the divine life is one and continuous with itself, infinite and eternal, and in no way and by no limit hindered from proceeding toward the boundless.

Up to this point the writer bestows his labors and his sweat as a gift to the truth, showing that this same life is bounded in neither respect—neither if one examines what is before the ages, nor if one reckons what comes after this.

But in what follows he again returns to his own confusion.

For having said that the same life is both without beginning and without end, then abandoning the discourse about the life and gathering into one single notion all the conceptions that are contemplated in connection with the divine life, he made all things one.

For if the life, he says, is without beginning and without end and incorruptible and unbegotten, then incorruptibility would be the same as unbegottenness, and beginninglessness the same as endlessness.

And he adds to these the alliance drawn from his reasonings;

for it is not possible, he says, that the life should be one, while the account of the incorruptible is not the same as the account of the unbegotten.

Well does the noble fellow add this!

And it seems that the account of righteousness, too, is nothing other than what has been stated, nor that of wisdom, nor that of power, nor that of goodness, nor that of each of the names befitting God; and let there be no account conceived according to what is proper to each, but for the whole list of names let one thing lie beneath as their signification, and let one definition of description fulfill the delimitation of each of the things spoken;

and if you are asked the signification of 'judge,' answer with the interpretation of 'unbegottenness'; and if you must render the definition of 'righteousness,' let 'the incorporeal' be ready to hand for your reply; and what does 'incorruptibility' signify?—say exactly what the sense of 'mercy' or of 'judgment' presents.

So too let all the particulars pass over into one another, with no distinctive meaning setting the one apart from the other.

And if Eunomius lays down these things as law, why do the Scriptures vainly invoke the divine Nature by many names, calling it God, judge, righteous, mighty, longsuffering, true, merciful, and many other such things? For if none of the names is apprehended in reference to some distinctive notion, but all are jumbled together with one another through confusion as to the signification, it would be pointless to have employed many appellations for the same thing, since no difference in signification distinguishes the names from one another.

But who is so stricken with stupor as to be ignorant that the divine Nature, whatever it is in essence, is one, simple, uniform, uncompounded, and in no way contemplated in any manifold composition; whereas the human soul, lying on the ground and buried in this earthly life, because it cannot clearly behold the object of its search, reaches out in many notions toward the ineffable Nature in manifold and multiple ways, hunting the hidden thing not according to any single conception? For indeed the comprehension would be easy, if one single approach to the divine knowledge had been marked out for us;

but as it is, through the wisdom manifested in the universe we have understood that He who presides over the universe is wise, and through the mightiness of the miracles we have received an intimation of power, while the fact that everything derives from Him becomes for us evidence that there is no cause of His existence.

We have supposed that our conceptions relate suitably to that which is conceived.

For the names do not conflict with one another according to the nature of opposites—as if, one existing, the other could not be contemplated together with it, just as it is not admissible for life and death to be conceived at the same time about the same subject—but such is the meaning of each of the things predicated of the divine Nature, that even though it be distinctive in its signification, it has no contrariety toward that which is named along with it.

For what does 'righteous' oppose in 'incorporeal,' even if the terms do not coincide according to their notion? And what conflict has 'goodness' with 'invisible'? Thus neither is the eternity of the divine life, when made known by twofold names and notions—by 'endless' and by 'beginningless'—cut in two by the difference of the names;

and neither is the one the same as the other according to signification (for the one showed the alienation of a beginning, the other that of an end), nor did the difference of the notions contemplated in it bring about any division of the underlying subject.

These, then, are the things from us; but the things from the one who wars against us are, according to the very connected sense of his wording, of such a kind as to have no alliance from reasonings, since he spits out such bombastic and senseless utterances in the form of clauses and periods at whatever comes to hand.

But the aim of what he says is this: that there is no difference among the various names according to their meanings.

And there is, it seems, every necessity to set down his very statement word for word, lest we should seem calumniously to fasten upon him something of what is not present in his words.

For, he says, since true statements take their verdict from the underlying things that are indicated, and since different statements are fitted to different things, just as the same to the same, of necessity one of two things must be the case: either the thing indicated is altogether different, or the indicating statement is not different.

These things and many others of the like beyond these he runs through toward the establishment of the aim he has set before himself, casting out of the account certain relations and juxtapositions and form and measure and part and time and place, so that through the removal of these unbegottenness might become indicative of the essence.

And the construction is of this kind—I shall state the thought in my own words.

The life, he says, is not something other than the essence, lest some composition be conceived about the simple Nature, the notion being divided into participant and participated;

but that very thing which the life is, he says, is essence—philosophizing well about such matters.

For none of those possessing sense would gainsay that these things are so.

But how did he bring his argument to a conclusion aimed at his purpose? If, in signifying the beginningless, he says, we have signified the life, and if the discourse of truth compels us to call this life essence, then he says that the unbegotten is significative of the very divine essence.

But we, for our part, also agree that the divine life has not been begotten by another—which is precisely what the notion of the beginningless signifies; yet to regard the very thing signified by the expression 'not having been begotten' as essence, we hold to be the view only of those who are carried away by madness.

For who is so out of his mind as to declare non-generation to be the definition of an essence? For as generation is properly related to the begotten, so plainly will non-generation also be fitted to the unbegotten.

That, then, which is not present about the Father when unbegottenness is being indicated—how do we agree that the indication of what is not present amounts to essence? Rather, granting to himself what is conceded to him neither by us nor from the consequence of the premises laid down, he concluded that the unbegottenness of God is the significative of the divine life.

And that his nonsense concerning this passage might become as evident as possible, let us examine his argument in this way.

For by those means through which, in the case of the Father, he brought round the account of the essence to unbegottenness, let us examine whether by the same arguments we shall not, on an equal footing, likewise trace the essence of the Son back to unbegottenness.

that of one thing there is one and the same account, even if in names and mode and order it should appear different;

for since true statements take their verdict from the underlying things that are indicated, and since different statements are fitted to different things, just as the same to the same, of necessity one of two things must be the case: either the thing indicated is altogether different, or the indicating statement is not different—there being no underlying thing beyond the life of the Son upon which one might either fix his understanding or cast the other account.

Is there any incongruity in what has been said, as though one ought not to say or write such things of the Only-begotten? Is not the Son Himself also life, purely one? Does it not befit Him too that there be one and the same account, even if in names or in mode and order it should appear different? Will not in His case too one of the two of necessity stand—either that the thing indicated is altogether different, or that the indicating account is not different, there being no underlying thing beyond His life upon which one might either fix his understanding or cast the other account? Nothing from us has been mingled by Eunomius into what was said concerning the Father, but we have come to the very confession and its consequence, having only inserted the name of the Son.

If, then, He too is one life, pure, separated from all composition and duplicity, and there is no underlying thing beyond the life of the Son (for how could a mixture of an alien thing be suspected in that which is simple? for that which is conceived along with another would no longer be simple), and if the essence of the Father is likewise simple life, and if, in accordance with him, there is no difference between the account of the life and the account of the simplicity of a simple life—neither of intensification nor of remission nor of the diversity in quantity or quality producing the divergence—then there is every necessity that the things coinciding in the same notions be also named by the same appellations.

If, then, the one thing that is apprehended according to the simplicity of the life is apprehended in Father and Son, since the account of simplicity admits, as has been said, no divergence, there is every necessity that the name fitted to the one be also proper toward the other;

so that if the simplicity of the Father's life is signified by the name of unbegottenness, that utterance is not unsuited even to the simplicity of the Son.

For just as that which is rational and mortal and receptive of mind and knowledge is named 'man' alike in the case of both Adam and Abel, and nothing altered the appellation of the nature—neither, in Abel's case, his coming into life through generation, nor, in Adam's case, his coming into life without generation—so, if indeed the simple and uncompounded name of the Father's life possesses unbegottenness, likewise also in the case of the Son's life the same notion will of necessity be fitted by the same utterance, if indeed, as Eunomius says, one of two things must be the case: either that the thing indicated is altogether different, or that the indicating account is not different.

But why do we linger idly among these vain things, when we ought rather to hold out the book of Eunomius to the more diligent for the refutation of the folly of his words, and, apart from those who would set it straight, to display from it to the discerning not only the blasphemy of his doctrine but also the feebleness of his very habit of expression? For interpreting the name of 'conception' in many ways—not according to our notion, but according to what seems good to him—as though in a night-battle with no one distinguishing friend from stranger, by the very means through which he supposes he is warring against us, he does not perceive that he is stabbing through his own doctrine.

For that from which he thinks he must chiefly estrange himself from the Church of the devout is precisely this: the contention that God became Father only at a late point, and that the name of fatherhood is more recent than the other names spoken concerning Him.

For he says that God was called Father from that moment at which He purposed to become a Father—and became one.

Either the names agree together and there is no difference among them—and among the names thus predicated is also 'Father' (for just as He is called incorruptible and eternal, so likewise He is named Father)—and in that case he will ratify, even with respect to this term, the opinion he holds about the rest of the names, and will overthrow his own first supposition, if indeed the notion of fatherhood is comprehended together with all the appellations (for it is clear that, if the signification of 'incorruptible' and of 'Father' were the same, then just as He is ever incorruptible, so also He will be confessed ever Father, since, as he says, there is one signification for all the names); or else, if he fears to attribute fatherhood to God from all eternity, he will of necessity dissolve his own enterprise, by confessing that a distinct signification inheres in each of the names—and so all his lengthy nonsense about names, bursting like a bubble, is quenched.

But if he should plead, concerning this opposition, that only the appellation of 'Father' and of 'Creator' accrues to God by way of a supervening addition, on the ground that (as he himself says) each of these terms is applied to God out of an activity, then he will cut short our great labour over the matter before us, by confessing the very things which we should otherwise have had to refute with much toil.

For if the signification of the term 'Creator' and of the term 'Father' is one (for each derives from an activity), then the things signified through these terms are altogether equal in force to one another.

For of things whose signification is the same, neither is the underlying subject at all different.

If, then, both 'Father' and 'Creator' are named out of an activity, it is altogether permissible, by interchanging them conversely, to use the names and to say that God is also the Creator of the Son and the Father of the stone—if indeed the name 'Father' has no share in a signification of natural relation.

But that which is established by this reasoning no longer holds any ambiguity in its absurdity, at least for those who possess understanding.

For as it is absurd to reckon a stone to be God, or any other of the things that have come into being through creation, so likewise it will be granted that neither ought divinity to be attributed to the only-begotten God—since, according to Eunomius' argument, one and the same signification, that pertaining to activity, attributes both appellations to God, in accordance with which He is named both Father and Creator.

But let us hold to the matters before us.

For in traducing our argument—which says that the knowledge of God is gathered up for us through various apprehensions—he says that God is thereby no longer established by us as simple, inasmuch as He partakes of the concepts signified through each appellation, and, through participation in these, completes for Himself the perfection that pertains to His being.

These things I write in my own words, abridging his long garrulity.

But to this vain and, I think, feeble superfluity of speech, I do not think that any of the right-minded would even make a rebuttal, apart from a charge of folly.

For if there were anything of this sort in what we had said, we should certainly have had either to retract what was ill spoken, or to lead the ambiguity of the meaning toward an unimpeachable interpretation.

But since neither has any such thing been said by us, nor does the consequence of what has been said force the meaning toward any such necessity, why should one, by lingering upon matters already agreed, wear out his readers with the prolonging of discourse? For who is so far out of his mind as, upon hearing that our devout suppositions concerning God are gathered through many concepts, to think the Divine to be composite from diverse parts, or to gather up for Himself His perfection out of a participation in certain things? Let it be supposed, by way of hypothesis, that someone has discovered geometry; and let this same man be assumed to be the discoverer also of astronomy, and again of medicine, and of grammar, and of geometry, and of certain other such pursuits.

These have no communion with one another as regards what they signify; nor, again, have navigation and agriculture.

And yet, concerning the one soul, the account of each of these can be gathered together; and the soul does not on this account become manifoldly composite, nor are all the names of the pursuits blended together into one signification.

If, then, the human mind is in no way injured in its simplicity by the many names spoken concerning it, how could anyone suppose that God—if He be called wise and just and good and eternal, and by all the names befitting God—unless one signification be reckoned to belong to all the names, either becomes manifold in parts, or gathers up for Himself the perfection of His nature out of a participation in these? But let us examine also his more vehement accusation against us, which runs thus.

"But if it be needful," he says, "to proceed to a more cutting argument, neither does he preserve the essence itself unmixed and pure of things worse and contrary."

Such, then, is the accusation; but what is the proof of the charges? Let us see his vehement and rhetorical assault against us.

"If," he says, "He is incorruptible only in respect of the endlessness of His life, and unbegotten only in respect of His being without beginning, then in that respect in which He is not incorruptible He will be corruptible, and in that respect in which He is not unbegotten He will be begotten."

And taking up the same thing again, he says:

"Therefore, in respect of His being without beginning, He will be at once unbegotten and corruptible; and in respect of His endlessness, at once incorruptible and begotten."