Against Eunomius 1 part 33/56

Do we then bring their honors, too, into equality with God, because those men also devised certain sounds equivalent in force to the appellation 'man,' through which the underlying reality is likewise made known? But this idle talk must be left aside by us, as I said before, and the subsequent revilings must be reckoned as of no account—those in which he says that we falsely accuse the divine oracles, and with all license slander both everything else and God Himself.

But let us pass over in our discourse to what remains.

He again sets forth a statement of the teacher which runs thus.

In like manner, and in no way differently, we have been taught by the divine word the use of conception (epinoia).

Our Lord Jesus Christ, revealing to men the nature of the Godhead, indicates it by certain properties contemplated concerning Him, calling Himself Door and Bread and Way and Vine and Shepherd and Light. Now the things spoken by him against us in insult upon these matters (for thus dialectic taught him to contend with those who speak against him), I think it fitting to overlook, and to be in no way disturbed toward such childish follies.

But let us thoroughly examine that sharp and inescapable statement which is put forward for the overthrow of our doctrine.

'Which,' says he, 'of the saints is there who testifies that these names are spoken of the Lord according to conception?' 'And who forbids it?'—I would say to him—judging it blasphemous to regard the use of the names as being in conception. For if he says that not being stated is a proof of being forbidden, he will altogether also grant that not being forbidden is a sign of being permitted.

Is the Lord named by these names, or does Eunomius even deny this? But if he denies that these utterances are spoken concerning Christ, we have prevailed without a battle.

For what victory could be more manifest than to show plainly that our opponent is fighting against God, by his striking out the divine utterances of the Gospel? But if he truly confesses that Christ is named these things, let him state the manner in which these names are piously applied to the Only-begotten.

Does he determine that the stone is indicative of His nature? Did he conceive His essence through the axe? Is the property of the Only-begotten's Godhead signified through the door, or through each of the others—that we may not bring a great crowd upon our discourse by reckoning up all the names? None of these names is the nature of the Only-begotten, nor the Godhead, nor a property of the essence; and yet He is named these things, and the appellation holds good.

For it is not pious to think anything idle and unmeaning in the divine utterances.

Let him therefore state the reason, if he rejects that they are spoken according to conception, from what source these names are applied to God.

For we say this: that, since the Lord provides for human life in manifold ways, each form of benefaction is fittingly made known through each of such names, the providence and activity contemplated in Him passing over into the form of a name.

And such a name is said by us to be named according to conception.

But if this is not agreeable to those who contradict, let it be held however it seems good to any one.

But he who is deaf to the riddles of Scripture contradicts what is said.

For if he had been instructed in the divine utterances, he would assuredly have known that the Lord is called by Scripture, according to various conceptions, both a curse and sin and a maddened heifer and a lion's whelp and a bereaved she-bear and a leopard and such like—the holy and God-bearing men making clear by these names, unerringly, the aim of the thought toward which they were looking, even if these names seem in some way to be defamatory according to their obvious import.

Unless one grants that each of these terms may be reverently applied to God according to some conception of the mind, the expression will not remain free from the more impious construction.

According to the common understanding, on the strength of its obvious surface impression, the doctrine of conception (epinoia) too has been slandered; yet in truth it appropriates the names of God to piety.

But let us proceed to the continuation of the argument, taking up the discourse once again.

Such names are applied to the Lord, and none of those who are conversant with the God-inspired Scriptures would deny that these things are said.

What then? Does he lay it down that these words signify the very nature itself? In that case he is asserting that the divine nature is manifold and highly composite, displaying its variegation according to the differences of the things signified by the names.

For the signification of 'bread' and of 'lion' is not the same, nor that of 'door' and of 'heifer,' nor of 'axe' and of 'water'; rather, one can render for each of the names its own proper definition, sharing in nothing with the others.

Therefore they do not signify the nature; yet no one would dare to say that the naming by these names is invalid and without signification.

If then these things are said, but not according to nature, and if everything said by Scripture is entirely authoritative and is appropriately applied, what other account remains, whereby such utterances are fittingly assigned to the only-begotten God, save the mode according to conception? For it is clear that the Divine is named in various senses with reference to the variety of its operations, so that, as we conceive it, so it is named.

What harm, then, does our mind's cooperation toward the understanding of things that come to be do to the more pious conceptions—that cooperation which we call 'conception,' though if anyone should wish to call it by some other name, we shall not quarrel? But, like the clever contestants, he does not let go of this inescapable hold he has on us, and he says thus, word for word, that these names arise by human conception and are said according to conception of certain things which none of the apostles nor of the evangelists taught.

And after this irresistible undertaking he brings in that sacred utterance, once more, with a tongue trained in such things, spitting out his foul-smelling abuse against us.

For, says he, to bring forward homonymy from analogy so as to attribute it to human conception is the work of a soul justly bereft of its sound mind, and examining the words of the Lord with a diseased understanding and a certain detected habit.

Bravo for the dialectical demonstration! How artfully his argument is brought to its conclusion for his purpose!

Who could still stand up for the doctrine of conception, when such a stench pours out from his mouth upon those who attempt to say anything? Must we too, then, on this account refrain from a joint examination of the argument with him, lest he should stir up this same sewer of abuse against us as well? Or is it the mark of the faint-hearted to be roused to harshness against childish ravings? So then we must permit the reviler to use his manner as he pleases.

But we must take up his argument again, so that from that very quarter also an ally may arise for the truth.

He made mention of analogy, and he devised the homonymy that arises from it.

Whence did he learn these things, and from whom did he get these words? Moses did not say them, he did not hear them from the prophets and apostles, the evangelists have kept silence about such utterances.

There is no Scripture that teaches one to learn these things.

Whence then did he get to speak thus? Is not such an argument the invention of the understanding of him who spoke it—an argument that calls the particular signification of a concept 'analogy'? How then does he not perceive that he is using as allies for the war those against whom he wages war? For he wages war against the doctrine of conception, himself, through the arguments of conception, constructing the claim that nothing ought to be said according to conception.

But, says he, none of the saints taught this.

The one who contradicts? You would indeed have seized upon a great tyranny, if you should secure for yourself this authority: that the very things you forbid to others, you alone are permitted to do, and the things which you yourself dare on your own authority, from these you may debar the rest.

By an edict you set aside the applying of these names to Christ according to conception, on the ground that none of the saints ordained that they must be so spoken.

How then do you lay down as law that the divine essence should be characterized by the term 'unbegotten,' when none of the saints is shown to have handed this down? For if this be the standard of the correctness of words—to utter only those things which the God-inspired word of Scripture has suggested—then 'unbegotten' would have to be erased from your writings, since none of the saints legislated this utterance.

But you accept the term because of the meaning that resides in this designation.

And we likewise, because of the concept that resides in it, have accepted the term 'conception.'

Therefore either we shall remove both from usage, or neither; and whichever of these should happen, we shall be victorious in either case.

For if 'unbegottenness' should be altogether passed over in silence, every utterance of our adversaries against the truth would be quenched together with it, and the glory befitting the only-begotten God would shine forth from all, since there would be no name arising from counter-distinction to belittle the majesty of the Lord.

But if both should remain, even so the truth will prevail on our side, the name of 'unbegottenness' being transferred from essence to conception.

But so long as he does not remove the term 'unbegotten' from his own arguments, let this Pharisee of ours admonish himself not to look at the mote in our eye before he has cast out the beam that lies in his own eyes.

But, says he, God has imparted the most honorable of names even to the weakest of things upon earth, without imparting to them an equal share of dignities; and to the most exalted things He has imparted the meanest of names, without the natural meanness being transferred along with the names.

These things have been quoted word for word according to his own text.

Thus it has been recorded by them just as it is by us.

Now if it contains some meaning hidden in its depths that escapes us, let those tell it who have grasped things far beyond our sight—those initiated by him into the inner and unutterable initiation.

But if they interpret nothing more than what is understood from the surface, I do not know which of the two one might reckon more pitiable than the other—those who say such things, or those who lend their ears to such things.

'To the weakest of things upon earth,' says he, 'He has imparted the most honorable of names, without imparting an equal share of dignities.'

Let us therefore examine the meaning of what has been said.

The weakest things, says he, are deemed worthy of the mere designation of the honorable, though not being in nature what they are named; and he says that this is the work of God—to falsify the inferior nature with the more honorable appellation.

And, conversely, he says that God fits the more dishonorable words to those things that are superior by nature, the nature not being transferred along with the appellation.

But that what is said may become most evident to us, the absurdity will be shown from the very facts themselves.

If someone should call a man esteemed for every virtue 'licentious,' or, reversing it, should call one branded with equal vice 'good' and 'orderly,' would such a person be reckoned by those who have sense to be sound-minded, or to have any care for the truth—one who applies designations reversed to their opposites, while the nature bears no joint witness to the signification of the names? For my part, I think not.

These things, then, this man says come to be from God—things which agree neither with the common notions nor with the scriptural testimonies.

But the divine Scripture is so far from assenting to this confusion, that one may even openly hear the prophecy complaining indignantly at such things.

'He that calls,' it says, 'the light darkness and the darkness light, that puts the bitter for sweet and the sweet for bitter.'

With a view to what, then, does he think it necessary to attribute this absurdity to his own god? Let those who have been initiated by him into the unutterable things say what they judge to be the weakest of the things upon earth, which is dignified by God with the most honorable of designations.

The weakest of existing things are such living creatures as have their constitution from the putrefaction of moist matter, while the most honorable of existing things are virtue and holiness and whatever is dear to God.

Are flies, then, and gnats and frogs, and creatures whose birth is from dung—are these honored with the appellation of the holy and of virtue, so that they are dignified by the honorable names, yet do not partake of an equal share of the dignities, as Eunomius says? But we have not yet heard any such thing, that these weak creatures have been named with the more magnificent of the designations, or that what is great and honorable in nature has been insulted by the appellation of one of these.

Let them say, then, whether any of these ever received its appellation from the opposites, or whether even in the case of those attested for the worse—such as Nabal the Carmelite, and Pharaoh the Egyptian, and Abimelech the foreigner, and all who are remembered for wickedness—these were honored by the divine word with the more auspicious of designations.

It is not so; rather, as things stand in nature and in truth, so are existing things judged and named by God, not being named contrary to what they are, but so that the things signified may become most manifest, being proclaimed by their own proper designations.

These things this man—so strong in understanding, this accuser of 'detected habit,' this one who justly derides those bereft of reason—these things he lays down concerning the divine nature, these are the opinions concerning God that he sets forth: as of one who mocks realities with false-named utterances, and bestows the most honorable designations on the weakest things, while the nature answers back against the designations, and who insults honorable things by their homonymy with the base among existing things.

And whereas some man of those who look toward virtue, when he has been carried somewhat outside the truth—and that often involuntarily—shrinks and hides himself for shame, does he consider it an honor befitting God to be shown falsifying realities by the appellations? The prophecies bear no such witness to the divine nature.

How then is He truthful who falsifies realities and alters the truth in the appearances of the names? 'The Lord God is upright'—He is again so addressed by the same one.

Is it, then, a mark of uprightness to dignify dishonorable things with the most honorable of names, and, while giving the bare appellation, to begrudge to the one who has received the designation the worth manifested by the term? Such is the testimony of these theologians concerning the new god.

This is the upshot of that much-vaunted dialectical shrewdness: to demonstrate that God Himself both delights in deceptions and is not clean of the passion of envy.

For it belongs to deception not to name the weak things according to their nature and worth, but vainly to bestow on them appellations from the superior things, without transferring the power along with the designation of the things named.

And it belongs to envy, when one is able to bestow the more honorable lot on the things named toward the better, to hesitate at the favor, judging, as it were, the well-being of the weak things to be one's own loss.

It is proper to look toward the truth of the underlying realities, and to bear witness to each according to its worth, and to name things from the facts.

But what does the pamphleteer intend by what has been said, and toward what aim does his argument look? For let no one suppose this, that out of a poverty of words, so as to seem to extend his discourse into breadth, he stretched out his nonsense by stammering over certain unintelligible things.

But the very senselessness of what has been said also has something suspect with respect to the heresy.

For to say that the most honorable of names are applied even to the weakest things, even if they happen not to share equally, according to nature, in the dignity, is a certain contrivance of his, secretly preparing the sequel for his blasphemy.

So that from this those who learn his teachings might learn from him this: that even though the Only-begotten be named God and Wisdom and Power and Light and Truth and Judge and King and God over all and great God and Prince of peace and Father of the age to come and all such names, the honor is only as far as the name.

For He does not also share in the dignity which the power of the names manifests.

For many other of the weakest things too have been honored with surpassing appellations, whose designation possesses loftiness, but whose nature is not altered toward the majesty of the appellation.

For this reason he says that the participation of honor comes to the lowly things from God only as far as bare names, since the equality according to worth does not follow along with the designation, so that, having learned all things concerning the Son—as many as belong to the lofty signification—people may suppose that the honor residing in the utterances is attested to Him only as far as the name, but that He has no share in an equal portion according to worth, in keeping with the technical reasoning contained in what has been said.

But indeed, in dwelling upon these foolish things, I seem to be secretly conceding something to my adversaries.

For in setting the truth against the vanities of what has been said, I seem to weary those who converse with the argument before the battle over the more critical matters.

So then these things, however they may stand, must be left to the more attentive of the hearers, while for us the argument must be carried over to the matters that lie before us.

Let there be passed over in silence, too, that which lies close to the matters already examined, namely, that:

These things, however, have been ordered in this manner, not because conception among men obtained the authority over the names—for who says this, that what is not contemplated according to its own subsistence lies within the authority of some thing? For to act with authority belongs only to those things which are governed by some proper will of their own, whereas conception is an activity of our understanding and depends upon the will of those who speak, not subsisting by itself, but having its subsistence in the impulse of those who converse—but because, he says, God Himself, who fashioned all things, fittingly harmonizes the designations to each of the things named according to the measures and laws of relation and activity and analogy.

But these things either altogether make no sense, or stand in contradiction to what was set forth before.

—to bestow the loftier of the names on dishonorable things, without imparting also the worth manifested by the signification of the names, and again to insult the things great in nature with dishonorable words, the nature not being transferred along with the lowliness of the terms? But perhaps we do wrong in bringing his unintelligible composition of words under such accusations.

For these things are altogether foreign to all understanding—I mean not only to the right understanding that leads to piety, but they are found by those who know how to examine accurately to have no share whatsoever in any reasoning at all.

Since, then, after the manner of the sea-lungs (jellyfish), the thing that appears seems to possess a certain bulk, while that bulk is a phlegm loathsome to look upon and yet more loathsome to take into one's hands, for this reason, judging silence to be most fitting toward what is vain, I shall pass over what has been said in silence.

For by what law are activity and proportion and relation governed, and who is the lawgiver who prescribes to God the laws and modes of proportion and relation? It would be better to leave the matter unexamined than, by zeal about such things, to bring on nausea in the hearers and to draw the discourse away from more serious concerns.

But I fear that all the matters set before us from Eunomius' pamphleteering may equally be but so much phlegm and sea-lungs;

so that of necessity our discourse must come to a halt at what has been said, finding in his writings no material for labor.

For just as some smoke or mist thickens and befouls the air in which it takes its formation, and hinders the sight from its natural operation, yet is not so condensed upon itself that one who wishes could grasp it, or enclose it in his palms, or offer resistance to one who strikes it, so too, if one were to say something of this sort about this pretentious composition, he would not miss the true likeness.

Much is the twaddle wrought in this swollen and inflamed discourse, and to one whose soul is not very keen of sight it seems, like a haze to one looking from afar, to have some substance and appearance;

but if one draws near to it and with a searching mind lays hold of what has been said, the notions, like smoke, slip away from the grasp and are scattered into nonexistence, and, having no firmness or resistance, do not receive the striking argument.

What then must one do? It is a perplexity.

For the choice is easily open to slander on either side in the eyes of the fault-finders: whether, leaping over his empty verbiage as over some ravine, we direct our discourse to the downhill and easy course, engaging in refutation only with those things that seem to have some strength against the truth; or whether we prolong the battle against vanities alongside all his nonsense.

For in the latter way the effort will be burdensome to those who dislike toil, and unprofitable, being drawn out over many thousands of lines to no useful end;

but if we lay hold only of those things that seem to have some strength against the truth, we shall give our opponents an occasion of accusation, as though we had let pass some points that admit no refutation.

Since, then, of the two courses set before us—that of going through the whole argument, and that of running over only the more necessary points—the one is burdensome to the hearers, the other suspect to slanderers, I declare it well to take some middle way and to escape, as far as possible, what is blameworthy on either side.

What then is the method? Cutting short as far as possible all the vain labors he has expended, and the great heap of rubbish, we shall run over the notions summarily in few words, so as neither to dwell needlessly upon senseless matters nor to leave any of the things said unexamined.

The whole of his discourse, then, is busied about this endeavor: contending to show, in human fashion, that the Divine speaks, and that He Himself, the Maker of things, fits the words significative of things to the things themselves.

Such are the reasonings he employs for his demonstration.

Basil said, he alleges, that, after the first notion of a thing arises in us, the finer and more exact examination of what has been conceived is called 'conception' (epinoia).

And by this construction he refutes the argument, as he thinks, on the ground that where there is no first and second notion, nor one finer and more exact than another, there could be, he says, no place for that which is by conception.

For the present, then, even this he will be caught having craftily filched from those who lend an ear.

For our teacher did not make this definition of every conception, but, having made as it were a certain particular subdivision of the things contemplated by conception—so as not to bring a great crowd of matters into the discourse—he clarified this one part and left it to those with understanding to reckon out the whole from the part.

And just as one who says that 'living creature' is predicated of many things differing in species would not be convicted of erring from the truth by bringing 'man' specifically into a description, nor would anyone censure him as having missed the reality, unless he were to render the same account concerning the winged and the four-footed and the water-dwelling that he pronounced concerning man; so, since the account of what is contemplated by conception is manifold and various, it would be no refutation to say that that is not properly 'conception' on the ground that there is also another kind—so that even if some other species of conception be contemplated, what was previously rendered has not been mistaken.

If then, he says, some one of the apostles or of the prophets, using these names concerning Christ, could be shown to have done so, the falsehood would have some excuse.

How great a diligence in the Scriptures of God do the words attributed to the pamphleteer testify to!

When John signifies the power of the Lord by the name of the axe, in the words where he says, 'Already the axe is laid to the root of the trees,' does he not seem a trustworthy witness of what has been said? And Moses, beholding God in light, and John naming Him the true Light, and Paul too, who in the first theophany was encompassed by the light and afterward heard the voices from the light, 'I am Jesus whom you persecute'—is he then not competent for testimony? And concerning the bread, let him read the Gospel, that the food from Moses, supplied from heaven to Israel, was taken up by the Lord Himself as a type of the Lord.

'For it was not Moses who gave you the bread, but My Father gives the true bread'—calling Himself the one who came down from heaven and gives life to the world.

But the genuine hearer of the Law says that none of the prophets or of the apostles imposed these names upon Christ.

What then follows, if the Lord Himself named Himself by these titles? Since indeed among the names of the Savior there is neither a first nor a second, nor one finer and more exact than another, seeing that He knows all things at once and with equal exactness, it is not possible to fit to any of these the argument he has advanced concerning conception.

Much of the drivel from that quarter have I bailed out upon my discourse;

but I beg those who read to have forgiveness, if we do not overlook even the manifest among his vanities as unworthy of notice—not that we take delight in the unseemliness of the pamphleteer (for what profit does it bring us that the folly of our opponents be exposed?), but so that the truth may advance on its way, establishing itself throughout all things.

Since, he says, the Lord imposed these appellations upon Himself, conceiving nothing first nor second nor anything finer or more exact, it is not possible to say that these names are from conception.

Against what did he wage this war? Our teacher made mention of one of those explanations that commonly attend the interpretation of conception, and, having in the following portions of his examples clarified the sense, he thus applies the contemplation of the argument to what precedes.

For he said that wheat, considered in itself according to its subsistence, appears as one single thing, but with respect to the various properties observed in it, it changes its designations, being called seed, and fruit, and food, and named by as many names as it undergoes changes.

And likewise, he says, the Lord too is in Himself whatever He is according to His nature, but, being named together with the differences of His activities, He does not hold one appellation for all things, but according to each notion that arises in us from His activity He receives the name.

How, then, is our argument refuted by what has been said—the argument which said that it is possible for many appellations to be fitted, according to the differences of the activities and the relation to the things being effected, to the Son of God, who according to His subject is one, just as the wheat, being one, is apportioned into different names out of the various notions concerning it? How then does he overturn what has been said, he who says that Christ speaks these names concerning Himself? For the question in view was not who it was that assigned the name, but the contemplation was concerned with the meaning of the names—whether it indicates a nature, or whether the naming is conceptually derived from the activities.