Against Eunomius 1 part 28/56

The addition of 'again' indicates, through the signification borne by this expression, that this does not happen for the first time;

for we use this word of the repetition of things that have already happened once.

Therefore by these words he signifies the fearful appearing of the Judge at the end of the ages, when he is no longer beheld in the form of a servant, but sits in majesty enthroned upon the throne of the kingdom and is worshiped by all the angels who surround him.

For this reason he who once entered the world, having become firstborn from the dead and among the brethren and of all creation, when he enters the world again as the one who judges all the world in righteousness, as the prophecy says, does not cast off the name of the firstborn which he once accepted on our behalf; but just as at the name of Jesus every knee bows before him who is above every name, so also all the fullness of the angels worships him who has come to be in the name of the firstborn, rejoicing at the recalling of mankind, which, by becoming our firstborn, he called back again to the original grace.

For since there is joy among the angels over those who are being saved out of sin—because until now that creation groans together and travails together with our vanity, judging our destruction to be its own loss—when the revelation of the sons of God takes place, which they ever await and eagerly look for on our behalf, and when the sheep is brought back safe to the hundred above (and we, the human nature, are surely that sheep, which the Good Shepherd rescued by becoming firstborn), then in a special way, with intensified thanksgiving on our behalf, they will offer worship to God, to him who through his primogeniture called back the one who had departed from the paternal hearth.

These things being thus understood by us, no one could any longer be in doubt concerning the rest—for what reason he becomes firstborn either from the dead, or of creation, or among many brethren.

For all these look toward the same aim, even if in each case some idea peculiar to itself is displayed.

For he becomes firstborn from the dead who first, by himself, loosed the birth-pangs of death, so that he might also open the way for all to the birth that comes through resurrection.

And again, he becomes firstborn among brethren, being begotten first in the water of the new birth of regeneration, whose birth-pangs the descent of the dove brought to delivery; through which he makes those who share with him in the like begetting his own brethren, and becomes firstborn of those begotten after him out of the water and the Spirit;

and, to speak concisely: there being three births in us by which human nature is quickened—the one from the body, another according to the mystery of regeneration, and another through the resurrection from the dead that is hoped for—in all three he becomes firstborn: of the twofold regeneration effected through both, that is, through baptism and through the resurrection, he himself becomes the leader in each;

and in the flesh he becomes firstborn, being the first and only one to inaugurate in himself, through virginity, a birth unknown to nature, of which no one in so many generations of mankind had been the leader.

If, then, these things have been rightly understood, neither will the meaning of the creation of which he is firstborn be unknown.

For we have come to know that the creation of our nature is twofold: the first, according to which we were fashioned, and the second, according to which we were refashioned; but there would have been no need of our second creation, had we not marred the first through disobedience.

That first creation, then, having grown old and having been done away with, there had to come to be a new creation in Christ, as the Apostle says, who deems it worthy no longer to look upon anything of the things grown old in the second creation, saying, 'Having put off the old man with his practices and his desires';

'Put on the new man, who was created according to God,' and, 'If any one is in Christ,' he says, 'there is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.'

For one and the same is the Maker of human nature, both at the beginning and afterward.

He did not simply fashion man, but fashioned him around himself;

then he created, afterward he was created;

then the Word made flesh, afterward the Word became flesh, that he might transform our flesh into spirit by sharing with us in flesh and blood.

Of this new creation in Christ, then, of which he himself was the leader, he was named firstborn, having become firstfruits of all—both of those begotten unto life and of those quickened out of death through resurrection—that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living, and through the firstfruits in himself might sanctify the whole lump together.

For that the title 'firstborn' is not applied to the Son according to his pre-eternal existence, the appellation 'Only-begotten' testifies.

For he who is truly Only-begotten has no brethren.

For how could one be only-begotten who is numbered among brethren? But just as he is called God and man, Son of God and Son of Man, form of God and form of a servant—being the former according to the transcendent nature, and having become the latter according to the loving-kindness of the economy—so also, being Only-begotten God, he becomes firstborn of all creation: only-begotten as the one who is in the bosom of the Father, but among those saved through the new creation both becoming and being called firstborn of the creation.

But if, as the heresy wishes, he is called firstborn because he was fashioned in advance of the rest of creation, then the name does not agree with what they construct concerning the Only-begotten God.

For they do not say this—that the Son and all things came into being alike from the Father—but they call the Only-begotten God a product of the Father, and all other things a product of him.

By whatever principle, then, they dogmatize that the Son was created and name God the Father of the created thing, by that same principle, saying that all things were altogether fashioned by the Only-begotten God, they will name him not the firstborn of the things made through him, but rather, more properly, their Father—the same relation to the created things on both sides producing, by logical consequence, the same appellation.

For if the God who is over all is properly named not firstborn but Father of his own creation, by the same principle the Only-begotten God, being altogether the Father of his own creatures, will be named not properly firstborn—so that the appellation of 'firstborn' is in every way invalid and superfluous, having no place in the heretical conception.

But we must return to those who attach passion to the divine generation and on this account deny that the Lord was truly begotten, lest they should conceive of passion.

For to say that passion is altogether coupled with generation, and that on this account one must suppose the Son to be foreign to any notion of generation, so that the divine may remain purely free from passion—this might perhaps seem to have some plausibility to those easily deceived, but to those instructed in the divine mysteries the refutation lies ready at hand from things acknowledged.

For who does not know that the generation which leads us up to the true and blessed life is not the same as that which is constituted from blood and the will of the flesh, in which there is flux and change and gradual growth toward maturity, and all the other things that are observed to belong to that generation?

But the other generation is from God and heavenly, and, as the Gospel somewhere says, is believed to be from above—which does not admit the passions of flesh and blood. Either, then, let the adversaries dare to declare one of two things: either that the generation from above does not exist, or that it comes to be through passion.

But in fact they agree both that it exists and that they do not find passion in it.

Therefore not every generation is naturally joined with passion, but the material generation is subject to passion, while the immaterial is pure of passion.

...to reckon passion when one conceives of the generation of the nature?... But let us further examine this too along with what has been said.

If, on account of the passion connected with the flesh, they disbelieve in the impassibility of the divine generation, then from the same examples—I mean those found in us—let them also disbelieve that God creates without passion.

For if they judge the divine by our standards, they will confess that God neither begets nor creates;

for neither of these is effected in us without passion.

Either, then, let them separate both from the divine nature—both creation and generation—so that by means of both they may preserve impassibility for God, and let them altogether cast out from their dogma faith in the Only-begotten, so that the Father may be kept free from passion, neither wearied in creating nor defiled in begetting;

Or, if they concede that the one thing may be brought about impassibly by the divine power, let them not wrangle about the other either.

For if He creates apart from labor and matter, He surely also begets apart from labor and any effluence.

And once more, in support of this argument too, I have Eunomius himself as my advocate.

I will state his nonsense briefly in a few words, running through his whole meaning concisely: namely, that men do not fabricate the underlying materials for us, but only contrive the form upon the matter.

This is the meaning of what he has said amid much nonsense.

If, then, in the begetting here below he conceives of conception and formation, and on this account rejects the pure notion of begetting, then, following his own argument, since the creation here labors over the form but is unable to supply the matter along with the form, on this account let him also reject the belief that the Father is a Maker.

But if he is unwilling to conceive of creation in God's case according to the measure of human power, then neither let him slander the divine begetting on the basis of human things.

But that his accuracy and circumspection in his statements may be made yet more manifest, I will once more take up a little of what has been said by him.

For he says that the things which act and are acted upon share a common nature with one another, and after the begetting from bodies he sets forth the artistic productions upon materials.

Let the shrewd hearer therefore consider, through these things, how he falls away from his own aim, ever wandering off among whatever notions happen to turn up.

In the things that come about through the flesh, he views what acts and what is acted upon as being of the same substance, the one imparting the substance and the other partaking of it.

So accurately does he claim to behold the truth in the nature of beings that he separates from the substance the one who imparts and the one who partakes, and says that each of these exists in itself apart from the substance.

For he who partakes or imparts is surely other than that which is partaken of and given, so that one must first be conceived as existing in himself, viewed according to his own individual subsistence, and only then speak of him as either giving what he has or receiving what he does not have.

And having thus laughably spat out this argument, the wise man does not perceive that in what follows he again overturns himself.

For indeed, he who by his craft shapes the underlying matter to his purpose surely produces something through his activity, and the matter, in being acted upon, receives the shaping from him who plies the craft.

For the matter does not receive the form given by the craft while remaining impassible and resistant.

If, then, even in things wrought by craft nothing could come to be unless passivity and activity have run together with one another toward that which is produced, how is it possible—through these very things—for the pamphleteer to suppose that he stands firm in his own statements, who, by declaring the communion of substance to lie in passivity and activity, runs the risk not only of testifying somehow to the begotten one's community of substance with the begetter, but even of making the whole creation consubstantial with its Maker, if indeed he defines the agent and the patient as having the same generic nature with one another?

Therefore, by the very things through which he seeks to establish what he wishes, by these he overturns his own endeavor, making the doctrine of consubstantiality stronger by his own battling against it.

...it is shown to the begotten one; and the artistic production, being accomplished through activity and passivity, according to his argument brings the maker and the thing made into a communion of substance—while the pamphleteer, throughout many places of his own writings, maintains that the Lord has been begotten; therefore, by the very things through which he alienates the Lord from the substance of the Father, by these he testifies to His conjunction with Him.

For if, according to his argument, the separation of substance is discerned neither through begetting nor through fabrication, then whichever he grants the Lord to be—whether created or begotten—by both he has testified to the kinship in substance, seeing that he has expounded, in the agent and the patient, in the begetter and the begotten, the communion of nature.

But let us turn to what follows in his discourse.

I beg my readers not to be vexed at the exactness of the examination, which draws out the discourse to an unwilling length.

For the danger does not concern trifling matters, such that, by passing over something that needs more laborious contemplation, we should suffer but a small loss; rather, it is over the very sum of our hope that we are imperiled.

For the issue set before us is either to be Christians, not carried along together with the heretical ruin, or else to be utterly dragged down into Jewish and Greek suppositions.

In order, then, that we may suffer neither of the forbidden things—neither siding with Jewish tenets through denial of the truly begotten Son, nor falling together with the downfall of the idolaters through worship of a creature—we must necessarily linger further over the discourse concerning these matters, setting down the very statement of Eunomius, which runs as follows:

"These things being thus distinguished, one might reasonably say that the substance which is most properly and first and alone subsists by the activity of the Father receives into itself the appellations of offspring and product and creature."

"But the Son alone," he says, "having subsisted by the Father's activity, possesses an incommunicable nature and an incommunicable relation to the one who begot Him."

Such, then, are the things that have been said.

But let us first observe the enemies' battle against themselves, as though we had become spectators of foemen locked in strife with one another, and then, in this way, let us set over against it the truth of true religion.

"The Son alone," he says, "having subsisted by the Father's activity, possesses an incommunicable relation to the one who begot Him."

Yet in the passages before this he says that he does not refuse to call the begotten one 'offspring,' since the begotten substance itself and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names.

Since, then, the contrariety in what has been said is thus evident, it comes over me to marvel at the sagacity of those who praise this doctrine.

For it would be impossible—to whichever of his statements they turn—for them not to err with respect to the one left behind.

His earlier argument established that the begotten substance and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names.

But his present artifice of words says the opposite—that the Son has an incommunicable relation to the one who begot Him.

If they believe the first, they will surely not accept the second;

if they incline toward this latter, they will take their stand against the earlier supposition.

For behold, not even when they are torn apart by the contrariety of the doctrines do they have any sense of the offense; rather, they are carried along by the ears, like amphorae wheeled about, at the pleasure of the one who shifts them.

It pleased him to say that the begotten substance suitably bears the appellation of Son;

immediately, like men nodding off, they nodded assent to what was said.

He shifted his argument again to the contrary and denies the Son's relation to the one who begot Him;

they nod along with him too, just as the shadows of bodies, by a spontaneous mimicry, reconfigure themselves according to the movement of what goes before—inclining toward whatever it wills, and, even if it fights against itself, accepting this too.

This fellow is a second Homeric potion—not one changing the bodies of those it drugs into the shapes of brute beasts, but working upon their souls the transformation into brutishness.

For concerning those others the story says that their mind remained steadfast, though their outward form was altered into a beastly one;

but here, while their bodies remain in their natural state, their souls are remolded toward brutishness.

And just as there the poetic marvel-mongering says that the drugged were changed into the forms of various beasts, according to the pleasure of her who outwitted their nature, the same things now come to pass from this Circean bowl.

For those who drink of the bewitching deceit out of this same writing are altered into various forms of doctrines, being molded now into this one, again into another.

And upon these, the "sweetest" ones—after the fashion of the myth's plot—still love the one who expounds to them such irrationality; and, stooping down, they pick out the words he flings about as though they were some fruit of the cornel-tree or an acorn, running greedily like swine after the doctrines cast upon the ground, having no nature to gaze intently upon things lofty and heavenly.

For this reason they do not see the swerving of his argument toward contraries, but seize without examination whatever comes to them, of whatever sort it may be;

and just as they say that the bodies of those stupefied by mandrake are held fast by a kind of coma and difficulty of movement, in the same way the perceptive faculties of the soul are disposed in these men also, having grown numb toward the understanding of the deceit.

Now it is a dreadful thing to be entangled in hidden snares by some fallacy secretly and unawares; yet the misfortune is pardonable when it is involuntary.

But to draw upon oneself the trial of evil by some deliberate forethought and eagerness, not being ignorant of the calamity, surpasses every excess of misfortunes.

For how is it not worthy of indignation, when we hear that even greedy fish flee the bare iron when it draws near, but, deceived by the bait, in hope of food swallow down the hook, while those in whom the evil is manifest deliberately desert of their own will to this destruction—which is even more wretched than the irrationality of the fish?

For the fish were drawn to the destruction concealed by their gluttony, but these men gape at the bare hook of impiety, loving destruction through a kind of irrational affection.

For what could be more evidently a contradiction than this—to say that the same one both was begotten and is a creature, and both possesses what suitably belongs to the name of Son and again is alienated from the signification of Son? But let this suffice on this point.

It would perhaps be useful to view, in due order, the whole meaning of the statement of Eunomius set before us, going back to the beginning of the discourse.

For the things now examined, on account of the plainness of the contrariety in what was said, readily moved us to begin the refutation from the latter parts.

These things, then, were said by Eunomius at the beginning:

"These things being thus distinguished, one might reasonably say that the substance which is most properly and first and alone subsists by the activity of the Father receives into itself the appellations of offspring and product and creature."

First, then, I wish to remind those who attend to the argument that in his first pamphlet he says that the Father's substance too is 'most proper,' having advanced his argument through these words: that the whole account of the doctrines held among us is completed out of the highest and most proper substance.

And here too he calls the substance of the Only-begotten 'most proper' and 'first.'

For one who is at war with himself would not have signified, by the identity of the appellations, things that stand apart in nature.

But since the account of substance is one in the Father and the Son, on this account he surely says that that one is 'most proper' and that this one likewise is 'most proper.'

And human custom too bears witness to this argument, applying the term 'most proper' to nothing to which the name does not truly correspond according to its nature.

For instance, we call a likeness 'man' by a misuse of the term, but properly by this word we name the living being displayed in the nature.

And in like manner the word of Scripture knows how to call an idol, a demon, and a belly 'god,' but the appellation does not therefore carry the sense of 'proper'; and so with all the rest, in the same manner.

Someone is said to have eaten according to a dream-vision, but one cannot call the vision 'proper eating.'

Just as, then, in the case of two men who subsist equally according to nature we properly name each of them by the word 'man,' but if someone were to place a lifeless image alongside the man who is truly such and count them together, he might perhaps say there are two men—both the one who truly is and the likeness—yet he would no longer testify that the term 'proper' belongs to both: so, if the nature of the Only-begotten were supposed to be something other than the substance of the Father, the pamphleteer would not have named each of the two substances 'most proper.'

For how could anyone signify, by the identity of the names, things that differ in nature? ... But it seems that the truth is made manifest even through those who war against it, since falsehood is utterly unable, even in the utterances of her enemies, to prevail over the truth.

For this reason, by the mouth of the adversaries—who do not even know what they are saying—the word of true religion is proclaimed aloud.

In the very same way the saving Passion of the Lord, undergone on our behalf, was foretold even by Caiaphas, who did not know what he was saying.

If, then, that which is most properly essential is common to both essences—I mean that of the Father and that of the Son—what room is left for saying that the essences differ from one another? Or how can there be observed in them any difference in respect of what is more powerful, greater, and more honourable, since the most proper essence admits of no diminution whatsoever? For that which exists imperfectly, whatever it may be, does not exist in the proper sense: it is neither nature, nor power, nor dignity, nor any other of the things contemplated in each particular case. Thus the superiority of the Father in respect of essence, as the heresy would have it, convicts the essence of the Only-begotten of being imperfect.

But if it is most properly essential, it is also altogether perfect;

for that which is deficient cannot by nature be named perfect.

Nor, when perfect is set comparatively over against perfect, is it possible to conceive of any difference arising by way of excess or defect;

for the perfection is one and the same in both, as upon a measuring-rule, neither hollowed out by any lack nor made uneven by any excess.

From what has been said, then, one may sufficiently see Eunomius' advocacy of our own doctrine—or rather, not his zeal on our behalf, but his warfare against himself;

for by the very arguments with which he establishes our doctrine by his own words, he turns his contrivances against himself.

But let us once more follow what he has written, according to his very wording, so that it may become plain to all that, apart from the mere wish to do mischief, the argument they put forward has no strength whatsoever toward the establishing of their evil.

Let us hear, then, what has been said:

'One might reasonably say that the most proper, first, and sole essence, which subsists by the activity of the Father, receives into itself the appellations of offspring, thing-made, and creature.'

Who does not know that what separates the Church from the heresy is precisely the term 'creature' as applied to the Son? Since, then, the difference in doctrine is acknowledged by all, what would it have been more reasonable for one who undertakes to show that his own suppositions are truer than ours to do—namely, to establish his own argument by whatever means possible, proving that the Lord must be thought to be created; or, passing that over, to lay down as law for his hearers that the matters in dispute be stated as though agreed upon? For my part, I say this:

all who have any share of understanding will require this from those who argue against them: that they first set the beginning of their argument upon some incontrovertible foundation, and so contend over what follows.

This man, however, having abandoned the establishing of the point that the Son must be thought created, proceeds to what follows, fitting the sequence of his reasonings to a groundless assumption—suffering the very thing that befalls those who plunge deep in soul into vain desires, being carried away in their imaginations toward a kingdom or some other of the things they set their hearts upon;

they do not merely conceive how some one of the things they desire might come to pass, but, as though it were already present, they arrange matters for themselves and dispose of the good fortune as they please, straying by a kind of pleasure among things that have no existence.

In this way our wise word-monger too, having somehow lulled to sleep that much-vaunted dialectic of his, before he has demonstrated anything concerning the matter in question, tells his tale as if to some little children, setting forth this deceitful and unfounded nonsense of his own doctrine like some drunken narrative.

For he says that the essence which subsists by the activity of the Father receives the appellation of offspring, thing-made, and creature.

What argument has proved that the Son subsists by some productive activity, while the nature of the Father remained inactive with respect to the subsistence of the Son? For this was the very point in dispute and under inquiry: whether the essence of the Father begot the Son, or whether some one of the things that accompany the nature from without wrought him.

Since, then, the Church, in accordance with the divine teaching, truly believes the Only-begotten to be God, but abhors the superstition of polytheism and on this account does not admit a difference of natures—lest by the disparity of the essences the Godheads should fall under number, which is nothing other than to introduce polytheism once again into human life—since, then, the Church teaches these things in its own proper manner, namely that from the essence of the true God the Only-begotten is by essence true God, how ought one who opposes what is thus acknowledged to overthrow the received supposition? Should he not do so by establishing his own opposing argument, jointly demonstrating the disputed point by means of some agreed principle? I do not think that anyone possessed of sense would seek anything other than this.

But this man begins from the matters in dispute, and gives the point that is in question, as though it had been demonstrated, as the starting-point for the argument that follows.

For if it had first been demonstrated that the Son subsists through some activity, what conflict would there be with what follows—namely, saying that the essence which subsists through some activity receives into itself the appellation of 'thing-made'? But so long as the antecedent remains unestablished, how can the consequent have any force? Let the advocates of the deceit tell us.

For indeed, if someone were to grant, by way of hypothesis, that man became winged, he would no longer contend about what follows;

for he who became winged would in some way even fly and lift himself up above the earth, borne aloft through the air upon wings.

But one must consider how he who has not been allotted an airy nature could become winged; and this not being the case, it is vain to go through what comes after.