Against Eunomius 1 part 27/56

but if the majesty of the divine nature lies above all height and surpasses every power of wonder, what account remains that could carry the interpretation of the Son's designation to anything greater? Since, then, it is agreed that every term signifying the Only-begotten, even if it be named from the lower usage, when transferred in thought to what is more majestic is properly spoken, and since it is shown that no one can find a conception more sublime than this designation of 'Son'—which sets forth his genuineness in relation to the one who begat—I think there is no need to linger further over this topic, it having been sufficiently demonstrated through what has been said that it is not fitting that the appellation 'Son' should, after the likeness of the remaining names, be reinterpreted.

But we must again bring our contemplation back to the book.

It is not the mark of the same men both not to decline to call the begotten one 'offspring' (for I shall use their own words)—since the begotten essence itself and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names—and again to transfer the fitting designations into figurative reinterpretations;

so that one of two things follows: either the first of their arguments has collapsed, and they take refuge in vain in the natural order for the establishing of the need to call the begotten one 'offspring'; or, if this is rightly said, then the other argument will be dissolved by what has already been established.

For he who, according to them, is called 'offspring' because of having been begotten cannot, for this very reason, have the nature of being called 'thing made' and 'creature.'

For assuredly the thing signified by each of the names differs greatly, and it behooves one who uses words with reason, looking to the subject, to employ the terms in such a way that we may not suffer any confusion regarding the concepts by unfittingly interchanging the words with the things signified.

For this reason we name the thing wrought by art the 'work' of the craftsman, but we call the one begotten of a man 'son of man'; and no one of sound mind would call the work a 'son' or the son a 'work.'

For it belongs to one who confounds and muddies the true signification in the mistaken use of the names.

So that of these two things one must necessarily be true concerning the Only-begotten: if he is Son, he is not called creature; but if he is created, he is estranged from the appellation of Son—just as heaven and earth and sea and all things individually, being creatures, do not assume the designation of 'Son.'

But since Eunomius testifies that the Only-begotten God is begotten, and since the testimony of enemies is stronger for the confirmation of the truth, then by saying that he is begotten he has jointly testified that he is altogether not created.

But concerning these things, so much.

For since many arguments come flooding upon us, in order that their multitude may not fall into excess, we shall be content with these concerning the matters set forth.

But it would be timely to examine in our discourse also the natural theorizing about 'offspring' which has been carefully philosophized by him.

He says, then (and I shall quote word for word the elegantly composed discourse he wrote against the truth):

'that the nature is yoked together with such passions.'

See how fittingly, in his contemplation, this man who scrutinizes with precision the nature of things treats of the pre-eternal begetting of the Word of God who was in the beginning—[dragging in] bodies about the earth, and material cause, and passion, and things begetting and begotten, and all suchlike things, at which any of those possessed of understanding would blush even if it were said concerning us, when our passion-laden nature is being branded by his discourse.

But such, then, is the brilliant natural theorizing of this word-monger concerning the Only-begotten God.

But we, letting go of indignation (for what more could a groan avail us toward the overthrow of our enemies' wickedness?), shall make public, as far as we are able, the sense of what has been said—namely, concerning what sort of offspring the contemplation was set forth: that which is constituted according to the flesh, or that which pertains to the Only-begotten God.

For since contemplation is twofold—concerning the divine and simple and immaterial life, and concerning the material and passion-bound subsistence—and since 'begetting' is spoken alike of both, it would be necessary to make a clear and unconfused distinction of the things signified, lest the homonymy of 'begetting' should deceive us regarding the truth.

Since, then, coming into being through the flesh is something material and is brought forward through passion, whereas that which is incorporeal and untouchable and formless and free from material admixture is estranged from every passion-bound disposition, it is fitting to contemplate concerning what sort of begetting the inquiry was—the undefiled and divine, or the passion-bound and filthy.

But no one could contradict that it was the pre-eternal existence of the Only-begotten God that was set before the contemplation of the discourse.

Why, then, does he dwell fondly upon this bodily natural theorizing, defiling nature in the disgusting arrangement of his discourse and publishing abroad the passions connected with human birth, having abandoned the subject that was set forth? For it was not this brutish begetting, the one constituted through the flesh, that we needed to learn about.

For who is so foolish that, beholding himself and perceiving in himself what is human, would seek another interpreter of his own nature and need to learn the necessary passions—as many as are contemplated together with the birth of the body: that the one begetting comes to be in passion in one way, and the one begotten in another—so that from this teaching the man might learn that he himself both begets through passion and that passion was the beginning of his own birth? For these things, whether kept silent or spoken, amount to the same; and whether one recounts them, publishing the hidden things, or covers over the unspeakable things with silence, we have not been ignorant that our nature comes forth through passion.

But what we seek is that the account concerning the exalted and ineffable existence of the Only-begotten, according to which he is believed to be from the Father, should be made clear.

This examination, then, being set before us, the novel theologian adds to his discourse flowing-forth and passion and material cause and a certain activity not clean of defilement and a supply flowing in from without, and all suchlike things—I do not know what has come over him, who says that, by the surpassing measure of his wisdom, none of the incomprehensible things is left outside his own knowledge, and who professes to interpret the ineffable begetting of the Son; yet, departing from what was set forth, he plunges eel-like into the muddy mire of his reasonings, after the manner of that nocturnal Nicodemus who, when the Lord taught the birth from above, was dragged down in his reasonings to the labor within the womb, and, at a loss, kept asking how one could come to be a second time within the belly, saying, 'How can this be?'—thinking that, by the old man's inability to be carried again in his mother's womb, he would refute the spiritual birth as inconsistent.

But the Lord corrects even his mistaken supposition, saying that the properties of the flesh and of the spirit are unmixed; and let this man too, if he wishes, correct himself in like matters.

For it behooves, I think, one who is a caretaker of the truth to contemplate the matter set forth from its own proper features, and not to slander the immaterial by way of accusations drawn from material things.

[What has our nature in common] with the impassible and undefiled nature? For neither does our being mortal cancel the immortality of the Only-begotten, nor does the turning of men toward vice render the unchangeableness of the divine nature doubtful, nor is any other of our attributes transferred also to God; rather the property of human and of divine life is something unmixed and incommunicable, and the distinguishing characteristics are utterly different, so that neither are these apprehended in that life nor, conversely, are those apprehended in this.

How is it, then, that Eunomius, when the divine generation is the subject set before his argument, abandons the matter at hand and expatiates upon the things that are on the earth, though we have no dispute with him at all concerning these? Nay, the aim of the craftsman is plain: that by slandering the generation of the Lord with the imputation of passion he may circumscribe it.

In respect of these matters, for my part, I pass over the blasphemy and marvel at the man's shrewdness—how mindful he is of his own zeal. For having in what preceded established that the Son both is and is to be called an offspring, he now contends that no generation is to be conceived concerning Him.

For if every generation, as he supposes, has the disposition of passion conjoined with it, then it is wholly necessary to confess by these very arguments that whatever is alien to passion is altogether estranged also from generation.

For if these two are conceived as conjoined with one another—passion, that is, and generation—then that which has no share in the one of them could have no communion with the other either.

How, then, does he call Him an offspring on account of His generation, when by the very things now said by him He is proved not to have been generated? And for what does he do battle against our teacher, who counsels us not to venture rashly upon coining names in the matter of the divine doctrines, but to confess indeed that He was begotten, yet not to shape this conception into the form of a name, so as to call the Begotten an 'offspring'—a term especially assigned by Scripture to inanimate things or to those adduced as images of wickedness? But whenever it is said by us that the term 'offspring' ought to be passed over in silence, he brings forward that invincible rhetoric of his, calling in also grammatical frigidity as an ally, and by the technical derivation or paronymy of names—or by whatever it may be proper to call such things—by these means he draws his syllogisms to the conclusion, not shrinking from calling the Begotten an 'offspring.'

But when we, having accepted this, contemplate the meaning of the name, on the ground that thereby the community of essence is jointly indicated, again he takes back his own words and insists that the offspring was not begotten—circumscribing by the filthy physiology of bodily birth the pure and divine and impassible generation of the Lord, as though it were impossible for the two things to concur at once in God, namely, genuineness of relation to the Father and impassibility of nature; but that, if there be impassibility, there is no generation, while if one confess the genuineness, then passion too must altogether be admitted along with the generation.

Not thus does the exalted John, not thus does that voice of thunder proclaim the mystery of theology—he who both names Him Son of God and purges the proclamation of every passion-laden supposition.

For behold how he prepares the hearing beforehand in the prologue of the Gospel.

For how great is the forethought in the teacher, lest any of his hearers should fall into base suppositions and slip through ignorance into certain absurd surmises!

For that he might lead the untrained hearing as far as possible away from passion, he did not in his prologue say 'Son,' nor 'Father,' nor 'generation,' lest anyone, hearing 'Father' among the first words, should be dragged down to the obvious import of the name; or, learning that a 'Son' is proclaimed, should conceive the name according to the customary usage here below; or should stumble against the word 'generation' as against a stone of stumbling.

But instead of 'Father' he names 'Beginning,' and instead of 'was begotten' he says 'was,' and instead of 'Son' he says 'the Word,' and declares: 'In the beginning was the Word.'

'Word'—is the Beginning a passion? Is the 'was' in passion? Is the Word through passion? Or, since there is no passion in the things spoken, is not that which is proper also jointly indicated in the proclamation? And yet how could the community and genuineness according to essence, and the co-eternity of the Word with the Beginning, be more clearly made manifest than through these words? For he did not say, 'From the Beginning the Word was begotten,' lest by some notion of temporal extension he should sever the Word from the Beginning; but together with the Beginning he proclaimed also Him who is in the Beginning, saying that the 'was' is common to both the Beginning and the Word, so that the Word should not come after the Beginning as a later thing, but should outstrip the hearing by the proclamation, entering in together with faith in the Beginning, before the Beginning alone by itself could be received.

Then he says: 'And the Word was with God.'

But still the evangelist seems to fear our want of training, still he dreads our childishness and lack of instruction; he does not yet entrust to our hearing the appellation of 'Father,' lest anyone of the more fleshly-minded, learning of a Father, should accordingly by his understanding conceive also of a mother.

But not yet even does he name 'Son' in the proclamation.

For he still suspects our familiarity with the nature here below, lest anyone, hearing 'Son,' should humanize the divine by a passion-laden supposition.

For this reason, taking up the proclamation again, he once more named 'Word,' expounding this physiology to you, the unbeliever.

For as your own word both shines forth from the mind and is not mediated by passion, so there too, hearing 'Word,' you will conceive the 'from something' and will not conceive of passion.

For this reason he says, taking up the proclamation again: 'And the Word was with God.'

O how he measures the Word against God—or rather, how he extends the infinite alongside the infinite!

'The Word was with God': with the whole God, assuredly, is the whole Word.

As great, therefore, as God is, so great clearly is also the Word who is with Him; so that if God is circumscribed, the Word too is altogether within a limit; but if the infinity of God transcends every limit, then neither is the Word, who is contemplated together with Him, comprehended by limits and measures.

For one could not say that the Word is not contemplated together with the whole Godhead of the Father, as though of God part were in the Word while part were convicted of being bare of the Word.

Again the spiritual voice of John, again the evangelist nurses the hearing of those who are still babes with his proclamation.

We have not yet grown so much in the first utterances as to remain unshaken, when we hear 'Son,' by reason of the customary import.

For this reason again the herald, crying aloud in the third utterance, proclaimed once more 'Word,' not 'Son,' saying: 'And the Word was God.'

First he said in whom He was, then with whom He was, now he tells what He is, perfecting the aim of the proclamation through this third recapitulation.

For 'I proclaim,' he says, 'not some word of those conceived according to the common sense, but God, in the appellation of the Word.'

For this Word, who was in the beginning and was with God, was not other than God, but was Himself also God.

And the herald, continually rising to a higher pitch in his mighty utterances through the recapitulation, says that this is the God—He who is foreshown in the proclamation—that this is He through whom all things came to be, and that He is life and the light of men, and the true light shining in the darkness and not dimmed by the darkness, coming to His own and not received by His own, and becoming flesh, and through the flesh tabernacling in human nature.

And having gone through so much beforehand, and such things, then he speaks of a Father and names the Only-begotten, when there was no longer any danger that one who had been so purified through these things should slide down to any defiled understanding from the signification of 'Father.'

'For we beheld,' he says, 'His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father.'

Say in response to these things to the evangelist, say your wise sayings to him, Eunomius: 'How is it that you name a Father and an Only-begotten for the Word, when all bodily generation is effected through passion?' The Truth will answer you on his behalf, doubtless: that the mystery of theology is one thing, and the physiology of fluid bodies is another.

By a great gulf are these things walled off from one another.

Do you defile what is pure in the divine generation? How do you, by the passions of the body, construct arguments about the incorporeal? Do not reason about the things above from the things below.

I proclaim the Lord to be the Son of God, because the Gospel from heaven also thus proclaimed Him through the shining cloud.

'For this,' it says, 'is my beloved Son.'

Yet not because I have been taught 'Son' was I dragged down by the name to the significations of 'son' here below; but I know Him from the Father, and I do not know Him from passion.

But I will add this also to what has been said: that I know a certain bodily generation too that is free from passion, so that in this respect also the physiology of bodily generation adduced by Eunomius is convicted of falsehood, if indeed a birth of a body be found that has not admitted passion.

For tell me: did the Word become flesh, or not? You could not say that it did not come to pass.

It came to pass, then, and there is no one who denies it.

How, then, was God manifested in the flesh? Through a birth, you will assuredly say.

Of what sort of birth, then, are you making mention? Or is it not plain that it is that of the virginity—and that what was begotten in her was of the Holy Spirit, and that the days were fulfilled for her to give birth, and she gave birth, and nevertheless incorruption was preserved together with the birth?

Then do you believe the generation from a woman to be pure of passion—if indeed you believe—yet do not accept the divine and undefiled generation from the Father, lest you should conceive of passion in connection with the generation? But I know clearly that it is not passion that he shuns in his doctrine—he who does not even in the first place discern any passion in the divine and undefiled nature;

but in order that the Maker of all creation may be reckoned a part of creation, he devises these things for the denial of the Only-begotten God, using as an accomplice the reverence he has feigned concerning passion.

And this he shows conspicuously by the things with which he presses his contest upon what has been said, saying that the essence of the Son was begotten by the Father,

not projected forth by extension, not torn away by any flowing forth or division from the connatural substance of the begetter, not perfected by growth, not shaped by alteration, but obtaining its being solely by the will of the begetter.

For who, among those whose organs of the soul are not utterly closed, is ignorant [through these words] that by the things said by Eunomius the Son is being established as a part of creation? For what prevents saying all these things, just as they stand, word for word, also concerning each of the other things contemplated in creation? And, if it seems good, let us fit the statement to some one of the things that appear in creation; and even if it should not have the same sequence, we will bring the verdict out against our very selves, as of men examining the argument in a captious way and not with the care befitting the truth.

Having therefore substituted the name of the Son, we will read the whole statement word for word.

For we say that the essence of the earth was begotten by the Father, not torn away by extension or division from the connatural substance of the begetter, nor perfected by growth, nor projected forth by alteration, but obtaining its being solely by the will of the begetter.

Is there, then, any incongruity in what has been said with respect to the subsistence of the earth? I think no one would say so;

for neither did God, by being extended, project forth the earth, nor, by flowing forth or by cutting Himself off from His own connaturality, give substance to its essence; nor did He perfect it from small to great by a gradual increase; nor, having undergone any turning or alteration, was He transformed into the form of the earth; but His will sufficed Him for the subsistence of the essence of the things that came to be.

For He Himself spoke, and they came to be, so that the name of 'generation' too does not jar with the subsistence of the earth.

The iron serves for the need; yet not because this precedes the others is there already some difference in respect of the matter between the tool that forms and the iron shaped according to the tool (for both this and that are iron), but the one is prior to the other in respect of form.

Such is the heresy's theology concerning the Son: to think that there is no difference in essence between the Lord Himself and the things that came to be from Him, save the difference according to order.

Who, then, among those who in any way whatever are counted among Christians, will assent that the parts of the world and the Maker of the world have the same account of essence? For my part, I shudder at the blasphemy, knowing that of things whose account is the same, the nature too is assuredly in no way different.

For as of Peter and John and the rest of men the account of essence is common and the nature is one, in the same manner, if the Lord were likewise disposed according to nature to the parts of the world, then whatever they observe in those parts they will of necessity confess to underlie Him also.

But indeed the world will not abide for ever;

therefore, according to them, the Lord too will pass away together with heaven and earth, if indeed He is of one kind with the world.

But if He is confessed to be eternal, it is wholly necessary to think that neither is the world without a share in the divine nature, if indeed it coincides with the Only-begotten in respect of creation.

You see toward what the argument is carried by this fine sequence of theirs—like some stone broken off from a mountain crest and driven down the slope by its own weight.

For it is necessary either that the elements of the world too should appear worthy of reverence, after the Hellenic vanity, or that not even the Son should be worshipped.

We say that the creation came to be from things that are not, both the intelligible and all that is of sensible nature;

these things they proclaim also concerning the Lord.

We say that all the things that came to be were constituted by the will of God;

these things they expound also concerning the Only-begotten.

We have believed that neither the angelic creation nor that within the world is of the essence of the Maker;

and they in like manner estrange Him too from the essence of the Father.

We confess that all things are in servitude to the will of the Maker;

this same conception they hold also concerning the Only-begotten.

Necessarily, then, whatever else they may conceive concerning creation, this too they will apply to the Only-begotten; and whatever they believe concerning him, this also they will suppose concerning the creation.

So that if they confess the Lord to be God, they will also deify the rest of creation; but if they define these things to be devoid of the divine nature, they will not deny the same supposition even concerning the Only-begotten.

But surely no one of sound mind attributes deity to the creation.

It is not, therefore—and I keep silent as to what remains, lest I stain my tongue with the blasphemy of our enemies.

Let those whose mouths are trained for blasphemy declare the conclusion that follows by logical consequence.

But the argument is plain even when we are silent.

For of necessity one of two things will hold.

Either they will openly vote down the Only-begotten God, so that among them this can no longer either be or be spoken of;

or, if they attest deity to him, they will attest the like to all creation as well;

or the remaining course: fleeing the impiety that appears on either side, they will take refuge in the pious doctrine and altogether agree that he is not created, so that they may truly confess him to be God.

Why should one linger recounting the rest—all the blasphemies that of necessity underlie their argument, springing from this starting point? For he who looks to the logical sequence will understand from what has been said that even the father of the lie, the fashioner of death, the inventor of wickedness, though created in an intelligent, immortal, and incorporeal nature, was not prevented by his nature from becoming through change what he now is.

For that which is mutable in essence, moving by its own power in either direction, possesses a natural capacity that follows the inclination of its free choice, so that it becomes that toward which its choice leads.

...dragging him down, by means of the creation, to equality of honor with the angels.

But let them hear the mighty voice of Paul.

How does he say that this one alone has been called Son? Because he is not of the nature of the angels, but of the superior nature.

For to which of the angels did he ever say, 'Thou art my Son'? And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, 'And let all the angels of God worship him.'

And to the angels indeed he says, 'Who makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire';

but to the Son, 'Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of thy kingdom,' and all the other things which the prophecy, speaking of God, sets forth along with these.

And he adds also from another hymn what is fitting: 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands,' and all that follows up to 'But thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail,' by which he portrays the unchangeableness and eternity of the nature.

If, then, the deity of the Only-begotten so far surpasses the angelic nature as the possessor differs from his servants, how do they make the Lord of creation common with the perceptible creation, or him who is worshiped by the angels common with the nature of the angels—expounding these things concerning the manner of his existence, things which will properly be fitted to each of the objects contemplated within creation, just as we have already shown that the account rendered by the heresy concerning the Lord fits aptly and suitably with the fashioning of the earth? But lest anything ambiguous should be left for those who engage with our labors—anything that lends some support to the heretical dogmas—it would be worthwhile to add this also, from the God-inspired Scripture, to what has been examined by us.

For perhaps they will say, from those very apostolic words which we have recalled, 'How could he have been named firstborn of creation, unless he were the very thing that creation is? For every firstborn is the firstborn not of things of a different nature, but of those of the same kind—as Reuben, who took precedence by birth over those numbered after him, was a firstborn man of men, and many others among the brothers who are counted together are called firstborn.'

They say, therefore, that whatever essence we conceive to belong to the whole of creation, we also declare its firstborn to be of that same essence.

If, then, all creation is consubstantial with the Father of all things, we too will not deny that its firstborn is likewise;

but if the God of all things differs in essence from the creation, it is altogether necessary to say that neither does its firstborn share essence with God.

Such, then, is the framing of the antithesis—in no way, I think, put forward by us more feebly than it would likely have been brought forward in reply by those who contend against us.

But what one ought to understand in response to these things will now be clarified in our discussion, as far as we are able.

Four times, in all his writings, has the name 'firstborn' been used by the Apostle, and he has made mention of this name in different ways and not according to the same manner.

For at one time he says 'firstborn of all creation,' and again 'firstborn among many brethren,' then 'firstborn from the dead,' while in the Epistle to the Hebrews the name of the firstborn is mentioned absolutely, standing by itself.

'And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, And let all his angels worship him.'

These things being thus distinguished, it would be well to treat each of them by itself separately: how he is firstborn of creation, and how among many brethren, and how from the dead, and how, mentioned by himself apart from each of these, when he is again brought into the world he is worshiped by all his angels.

So then, if it seems good, let us begin the contemplation of the matters before us from the last of them.

'When he again brings,' he says, 'the firstborn into the world.'