Against Eunomius 1 part 26/56

For just as there the one who was not begotten was, in the account of essence, the same as the one who was begotten, and likewise the begetting of Abel did not produce a change of nature; so also, in the case of the incorruptible doctrines, the Only-begotten God, by his own begetting, altered in himself in no respect the essence of the Unbegotten—having come forth from the Father and being in the Father, as the Gospel says—but he is, according to the simple and unlearned account of our faith, Light of Light, true God of true God, being all that the other is, save only being that other.

But as for the aim for the sake of which he goes through these technicalities in detail, I think there is no need to speak of it at present—whether it be a bold and dangerous thing, or a permissible and harmless one, to reshape from one thing into another the words significative of the divine nature, and to call the begotten one an 'offspring.'

I pass over these matters, lest our discourse, dwelling more than is fitting upon the contest over lesser points, should neglect the greater.

But this I say we must accurately consider: whether the natural relation is what introduces the use of these names.

For he certainly asserts this: that by the propriety of the appellations there is also introduced along with them what is proper according to essence.

For no one would say that the names, taken bare in themselves and severed from the manifestation of the things signified, have any relation or propriety to one another.

Rather, it is in the significations disclosed by the words that we distinguish what is proper and what is foreign among the appellations.

Therefore, if he confesses that the Son has a natural relation to the Father, let us leave aside the appellations and consider the force that lies in the things signified: whether what is foreign to the essence is contemplated in this propriety, or what is kindred and proper.

But to say 'what is foreign' is a mark of manifest madness.

For how could anyone preserve a conjoined and proper order in the names by means of things alien and incommunicable, when the very essence that was begotten (as he says) and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of names? But if he should say that what is proper is signified through these appellations, then he will of necessity be shown to be an advocate of the community of essence through the propriety of the names; and he does not realize that he is establishing, and in many places of his pamphlet is representing as signified, the conjunction of the subjects.

This is like what we heard about Saul in the sacred history: that once, being stirred with anger against the prophets, he was overcome by grace and became one of those inspired by God—the prophetic Spirit, I suppose, willing through Saul himself to chasten the apostate.

Hence the paradox of that encounter became a proverb for later life, since the history recounts such a thing with wonder.

'Is Saul also among the prophets?' In what respects, then, does Eunomius stand with the truth? In those in which he says that the Lord himself, being the Son of the living God, not ashamed of his birth from the Virgin, in his own words often called himself the Son of Man.

For we too bring forward this argument as a demonstration of the community of essence: that the name of Son indicates the communion of nature equally in both respects.

For just as he is called Son of Man on account of the kinship of his flesh with her from whom he was born, so also he is by all means understood as Son of God on account of the conjunction of his essence with that from which he came to subsist.

And this argument is the greatest weapon of the truth.

For nothing so demonstrates the Mediator between God and men—as the great Apostle named him—as does the name of Son, being applied equally to each nature, both the divine and the human.

For the same one both is the Son of God and, according to the dispensation, became the Son of Man, that by his communion with each he might, through himself, join together the things that are separated by nature.

If, then, having become the Son of a man, he had no share in human nature, it would follow that, being Son of God, one should say that neither does he share in the divine essence.

But if the whole human composite was in him (for 'he was tempted in all points according to the likeness, apart from sin'), then it is altogether necessary to believe that every property of the transcendent essence is also in him—the voice of the Son bearing witness to each alike in him: the human in the man, and the divine in God.

If, then, the appellations—as Eunomius says—indicate what is proper, and if the propriety lies in the realities and is not contemplated in the bare sounds of the names (and by 'realities' I mean the things conceived in themselves, if it be not too bold thus to speak of the Son and the Father), who would gainsay that even the very champion of blasphemy is spontaneously dragged over to the advocacy of piety, overturning by his own hand his own arguments, and proclaiming the community of essence in the divine doctrines? For the argument which was, unwillingly, cast forth by him on behalf of the truth does not lie concerning these matters—namely, that he would not have been called Son, unless the natural sense of the names verified the appellation.

For just as a bench is not called the son of the craftsman, nor would any sober person say that the builder begat the house, nor do we name the vineyard the offspring of the vinedresser—but we call the fabricated thing a work of man, and the one begotten from him a son of man, so that, I suppose, what is fitting may be signified through the names in the underlying realities—so also, having been taught to call the Only-begotten the Son of God, we did not, through this appellation, conceive of him as a creature of God, but as that which the voice of the Son truly indicates by what is signified.

And if wine is even named by Scripture the 'offspring of the vine,' not even so will the argument be injured, on the ground of this homonymy, with regard to the doctrines of piety.

For we do not call wine the offspring of the oak, nor the acorn the offspring of the vine, but there is some communion, according to nature, between the offspring and that from which it comes.

For the moisture in the vine, drawn up through the base of the root by the pith, is in its potency water; but proceeding by a certain sequence along the paths of nature, and flowing over from the lower parts to that which lies above, it is changed into the quality of wine—the sun's ray also contributing something, which by its heat draws up the moisture from the depths to the shoot, and by its own suitable and appropriate concoction makes the sap into wine.

...that it has the wine which is begotten from it.

For this liquid comes from that liquid, and no one could name any other cause of the liquidity of the wine than the moisture naturally residing in the tendrils.

But the differences of the qualities produce no variation as regards the liquid itself; rather, it is some particularity that distinguishes the liquid in the wine from that in the branch—an astringency, or a sweetness, or a moistness accompanying the one or the other—so that as to the underlying substrate it is the same, but by the differences of qualities it varies.

Therefore, just as, having heard from Scripture that the Only-begotten God is Son of Man, we learned through the relation of the name his propriety toward the true man, so also, even if the Son be called an 'offspring' according to the argument of our opponents, none the less do we through this too learn his propriety, according to essence, toward the one who begat him—inasmuch as even the wine, though called the offspring of the vine, is not found to be foreign to it in respect of the account of the liquidity that naturally resides in the vine.

But if anyone should soundly examine the things said by our opponents, they look toward our doctrine, while their intent contradicts their own constructions—they contending everywhere to establish what is foreign according to essence.

And yet it is altogether impossible to conjecture whence they were led on to such suppositions.

For if the appellation of Son does not simply signify being from something, but properly presents, through what is signified, the natural relationship—as Eunomius himself says—and wine is not called the offspring of an oak, and 'the offspring of vipers' (as the Gospel somewhere says) are serpents and not sheep, it is clear that in the case of the Only-begotten too the appellation both of Son and of offspring would not have its propriety toward what is of another kind.

But if indeed, according to the argument of our opponents, he is both called an 'offspring' and, as they confess, the appellation of Son is according to nature, then he is by all means Son of the essence of the one who begat him, and not of any other of the things contemplated outside the nature.

And if he truly is from thence, he is by all means not estranged from that from which he is—as was shown also in the other instances, that everything which by begetting subsists from something is by all means of the same kind as that from which it came to be.

But if anyone should demand some interpretation, description, and exposition of the divine essence, we will not deny that we are unversed in such wisdom—confessing only this much, that it is not possible for that which is boundless in nature to be comprehended by any invention of words.

For that the divine majesty has no limit, prophecy cries aloud, distinctly proclaiming that of the magnificence of the glory of his holiness there is no end.

But if the things about him are without limit, much more is he himself, in respect of essence—whatever indeed he is—not to be comprehended in any part by any boundary.

If, then, interpretation by means of names and words in some way circumscribes the subject by its signification, but the boundless cannot be encompassed, no one could reasonably blame our ignorance, since we are not being reckless against things not to be ventured upon.

For by what name shall I circumscribe the incomprehensible? Through what utterance shall I proclaim the ineffable? Since, then, the divine is better and higher than the signification of names, we have learned to honour in silence the things that are beyond word and thought.

So far is he from thinking the divine nature to be within human comprehension, that he even says the judgments of God are unsearchable and his ways past tracing out, and firmly maintains that the things promised to those who love him, in return for the good deeds accomplished in this present life, are beyond apprehension—so that they can neither be received by the eye, nor taken in by the ear, nor contained by the heart.

Having learned these things, then, from Paul, we confidently declare that not only are the judgments of God higher than the power of those who attempt to search them out, but that even the ways of knowledge remain, up to now, untrodden and impassable.

For this we think the Apostle wished to signify when he said the ways were past tracing out—namely, those which lead to the incomprehensible—showing through the phrase that that knowledge is impassable to human reasonings, and that no one has yet applied his mind to such a journey of the argument, nor stamped any track or sign of a comprehensive approach upon things that cannot be grasped.

Having learned these things, then, from the grandeur of the apostolic voice, we reason from what has been said that, if the judgments cannot be searched out and the ways are not to be traced and the promise of good things transcends every guess drawn from conjecture, how much more, in respect of what is unutterable and inaccessible, is the divine itself higher and loftier, by that measure, than the things conceived concerning it—of which the God-taught Paul declares there to be no knowledge at all.

And therefore we confirm in our own selves the doctrine that is mocked, confessing that we are lesser, as regards knowledge, than the things that surpass knowledge; and we say that we truly worship that which we know.

But we know the height of the glory of the one worshipped, reckoning the inconceivable greatness of his magnitude from this very fact—that we cannot grasp it by reasonings.

And that which was said by the Lord to the Samaritan woman, but is brought forward against us by our enemies, would more properly be spoken to them.

For 'You worship what you do not know,' says the Lord to the Samaritan woman—who in her notions concerning God had been preoccupied with corporeal conceptions—whom the argument rightly reproaches: that the Samaritans, while thinking they worship God, and then supposing that the divine is bodily seated in a place, are pious only as far as the word, worshipping something other and not God.

For nothing conceived as circumscribed is divine.

But it is proper to the Godhead to be everywhere and to pervade all things and to be enclosed by nothing—so that the argument brought forward against us turns round upon the Christ-fighters as an accusation of themselves.

For just as the Samaritans, thinking the divine to be contained by a certain local circumscription, were rebuked by hearing 'You worship what you do not know, and your service that looks toward God becomes useless to you—for a God supposed to be seated in some place is not God'—so also it would properly be said even to the new Samaritans: that, supposing the divine essence to be enclosed by the name of 'unbegottenness' as by a kind of place, 'You worship what you do not know,' serving indeed as God, but in ignorance that the boundlessness of God overpasses all signification and comprehension by names.

But indeed the discourse has been carried on further than the matters set before it, following what is ever discovered in due sequence.

Let us, then, take up the sequence again, since I think the passage of his that was set forth has been sufficiently shown, through what has been said, to be opposed not only to the truth but also to itself.

For if, according to them, the natural relation is constituted by the appellation of Son toward the Father, and by that of offspring toward the one who begat—while their wisdom, by some grammatical nonsense, misshapes the words significative of the divine nature into the form of names—then no one could any longer doubt that the relation of the names to one another, established from nature, comes to be a proof of their propriety according to essence, or rather of their identity.

...that the doctrine of piety is confirmed by the very ones who fight against it, but rather has its strength above all in itself.

Insofar, then, as it is possible, let the opposing argument be confirmed by us ourselves, through a more vigorous advocacy, so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be discerned with much confidence, when we bring forward even the things conceded by our adversaries for an exact testing of our truth.

For the one who insists on the opposite view will perhaps say that the appellation of Son and of offspring does not by all means present what is proper according to nature.

For indeed one is called in Scripture a 'child of wrath,' and a 'son of perdition,' and an 'offspring of a viper'—and surely no community of nature has appeared together with such names.

For Judas, who is named the son of perdition, is not identical in substrate with perdition itself as conceived.

For the significance of the man in the case of Judas is one thing, and that of perdition is another.

And similarly, from the opposite side too, the argument has an equal construction.

For certain ones called 'sons of light' and 'sons of day' are not identical with light and with day in respect of the account of nature; and the stones become children of Abraham when, through faith and works, they appropriate the kinship toward him; and those led by the Spirit of God (as the Apostle says) are called sons of God, not being identical with God according to nature. And many such things one may gather from the God-inspired Scripture, through which deception, like some image decked out with the scriptural testimonies, counterfeits the semblance of truth.

What, then, do we say to this? The divine Scripture knows how to use the voice of 'Son' in accordance with both conceptions, so that to some the appellation is by nature, but to others it is acquired and superimposed.

For when it speaks of 'sons of men' and 'sons of rams,' it signifies the relation, according to essence, of the begotten toward that from which it came to be.

But when Scripture speaks of 'sons of power' or 'children of God,' it sets forth a kinship that comes to be by way of deliberate choice.

And indeed, according to the opposite sense as well, the same persons were named both 'sons of Eli' and 'sons of pestilence,' the designation of 'sons' fitting aptly with either meaning.

For by being called 'sons of Eli' they were attested to have a natural kinship with him; but by being named 'sons of pestilence' they were denounced on account of the wickedness of their deliberate choice, since it was not their father whom they emulated in their manner of life, but rather they had appropriated their choice to evil.

Now in the case of the lower nature and of the affairs that concern us, since human nature inclines readily toward either side—I mean toward vice and toward virtue—it lies within our power to become sons either of night or of day, while our nature abides, in its primary respect, within its own proper bounds.

For neither did the one who through vice became a child of wrath thereby become estranged from human birth, nor did the one who by deliberate choice attached himself to the good cast off, by the refinement of his pursuits, the fact of being born of human parents; rather, while nature stands alike in both, the differences that follow upon deliberate choice assume the names of kinship, becoming either children of God through virtue or children of the adversary through vice.

But in the matter of the divine doctrines, Eunomius—who preserves the natural order (for I shall use the very words of this word-monger), who abides by what has been acknowledged from of old, and who does not decline to say that the Only-begotten, being begotten, is offspring, since (as he says) the begotten essence itself and the appellation 'Son' appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names—how does he estrange the begotten from kinship in essence with the one who begat? For in the case of sons or offspring spoken of by way of reproach, or again in the case of those to whom some praise accompanies such names, one cannot say that anyone truly begotten by wrath was called a child of wrath, nor again that anyone had a day as his bodily mother, so as to be named her son; rather it is the difference of deliberate choices that produces the names of such a kinship.

'We do not decline to say that the Son, being what he is, is offspring,' he says, 'since the begotten essence and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names.'

If, then, because the Son is truly offspring, he confesses that such a relation of the names is appropriated, how has he any occasion to fit such a cause of the names to things spoken metaphorically by misuse and to those in which, as Eunomius says, a natural relation appropriates such a designation? Surely such a thing is true only of those whose nature stands on the border between virtue and vice, of whom one often takes in turn the contrary of the names, becoming now a child of light and now of darkness through his inclination toward the good or toward its opposite.

But where the contrary has no place, one could no longer say that the term 'Son' is applied metaphorically, after the likeness of those who appropriate the designation through deliberate choice.

For one could not come to this conclusion: that just as a man, having laid aside the works of darkness, becomes through a decorous life a child of light, so also the Only-begotten God receives, through a change from the worse, that which is more excellent.

For a man, being a man, becomes a son of God through the spiritual birth, being joined to Christ;

but he who through himself makes man a son of God does not himself stand in need of another Son to bestow adoption upon him, but is that which he is by nature and is so named.

A man changes himself, exchanging the new for the old;

but God—into what shall he be changed, so as to acquire that which he does not have? A man, having stripped himself off, puts on the divine nature;

but he who is ever the same in the same way—what does he lay aside or what does he put on? A man becomes a son of God, having taken on what he does not have and cast off what he has;

but he who has never been in vice has neither anything to receive nor anything to leave behind.

Again, a man can in one respect be truly called someone's son—when one speaks with regard to nature—but in another respect by misuse, when the deliberate choice of his manner of life applies the name.

But God, being one Good in a simple and non-composite nature, ever looks toward the same, and is never changed by the impulses of deliberate choice; rather he ever both wills what he is and altogether is what he also wills, so that in both respects he is properly and truly named Son of God—since his nature has the good within itself, and his choice is not severed from the better—so that this term is not applied to him by misuse.

There is, then, no room for the things which, in the person of our opponents, we set forth against ourselves, to be brought forward by our adversaries so as to cancel the natural kinship.

But I do not know how it is that, hating and turning away from the truth, they on the one hand name him Son, yet, so that what is common in essence may not be attested by this term, they separate the term from the meaning inherent in the name, and leave the name 'Son' empty and devoid of signification for the Only-begotten, granting him only the mere sound of the word.

And that I speak these things truly and do not miss the aim of our adversaries, it is possible to learn plainly from the very things by which they assail the truth.

For such are the things brought forward by them for the establishing of their blasphemy: that we have been taught by the divine Scripture many names of the Only-begotten—stone, axe, rock, foundation, bread, vine, door, way, shepherd, spring, wood, resurrection, teacher, light, and many others of this kind—yet none of these can be reverently said of the Lord if we take them in their obvious signification.

For it would indeed be among the most absurd things to suppose that what is incorporeal and immaterial, simple and without shape, is fashioned according to certain meanings that appear in the names—so that upon hearing 'axe' we should conceive that particular shape of iron, or by 'light' the light in the air, or by 'vine' the plant that grows from the pruning of branches, or each of the others according as customary usage suggests we should conceive it.

[These names are not applied to him] according to the account of nature, but as things indeed spoken thus, while something else beyond these is understood through what is said.

But if such names are truly attributed to the Only-begotten God and yet do not comprise an indication of his nature, they say it is consistent that we should not take even the thing signified by 'Son,' according to the prevailing usage, into the interpretation of his nature, but should find some other signification for this term also, beyond the common and obvious one.

These and suchlike things they philosophize for the purpose of establishing that the Son is not that which he both is and is called.

But our discourse was hastening toward another end—to show that Eunomius' recent composition is false and inconsistent, agreeing neither with the truth nor with itself.

But since, through the very things by which we accuse their doctrine, a kind of advocacy of the blasphemy has been introduced into the argument, it would be well first to treat briefly of this, and then so to return to the sequence of what has been written.

What, then, must we say in response to such things, so as not to fall short of what is fitting? That, of the many names (as even they say) which are attributed to the Only-begotten by Scripture, none of the others, we affirm, has that natural fitness which belongs to the reference to the one who begat.

For we do not, in referring to the God of all, speak of 'stone' or 'resurrection' or 'shepherd' or 'light' or any of the others in the same way as we speak of the Son of the Father; but it is possible, as by some art and rule, to divide the signification of the divine names into two.

For some of them convey an indication of the exalted and ineffable glory, while others display the manifold character of his providential dispensation;

so that, on the supposition that the object of benefaction did not exist, neither would these terms which display the benefaction be assigned to him.

But as many as interpret that which befits God, these are aptly and properly applied to the Only-begotten God even apart from the things dispensed.

And that this doctrine may be uncovered for us more clearly, our contemplation shall be upon the names themselves.

The Lord would not have been named 'vine' were it not for the sake of the planting of those rooted in him, nor 'shepherd' had not the sheep of the house of Israel been lost, nor 'physician' but for the sake of the sick, nor would he have taken upon himself the rest of the names, had he not through some providential activity suitably appropriated these terms in reference to those being benefited.

For why need one prolong the argument by speaking of each in detail, in matters that are agreed upon? But 'Son' and 'right hand' and 'Only-begotten' and 'Word' and 'Wisdom' and 'Power' and all such things as are spoken relatively—these he is said to be, being altogether named together with the Father, as in a certain relational conjunction.

For he is named 'Power of God' and 'right hand of God' and 'Wisdom of God' and 'Son of the Father' and 'Only-begotten' and 'Word toward God' and all such things.

It follows, therefore, from what has been said, that we should discern in each of the names a signification corresponding to and befitting the subject, so that by missing the right understanding we may not err concerning the doctrine of piety.

Just as, then, taking each of the other names in a sense befitting God, we set aside the obvious notion regarding them—so as to mean neither material light, nor a trodden road, nor lifeless stone, nor bread from farming, nor the word made of syllables, but instead of these to name those things which set forth the majesty of the power of the Word of God—so, if anyone should set aside the customary and natural signification of 'Son,' through which we learn that he is from the essence of the one who begat, he will assuredly transfer the name to some more God-befitting interpretation.

For since the transference of each of the other names to what is more glorious harmonized with the indication of the divine power, it altogether follows that the meaning of this name too should be carried over to what is loftier.

[It is absurd] to think that the lowly and the grovelling is more suited than the lofty and the great to accounts of the divine nature.

If, then, they discover some conception more sublime than this, such that it seems unworthy to conceive concerning the Only-begotten that he is from the nature of the Father, let them tell, if they know anything according to their ineffable wisdom, that is loftier than the paternal nature, so that, having raised the Only-begotten God to that, they might exalt him above his relation to the Father;