Against Eunomius 1 part 41/56

For the Lord says to the Samaritan woman, 'You worship that which you know not,' since she had been preoccupied in her opinions concerning God with bodily notions; and rightly does the Word rebuke her, because the Samaritans, thinking that they worshipped God, and yet supposing the Divine to be bodily fixed in a place, are pious only as far as the word goes, worshipping something else and not God.

For nothing conceived within circumscription 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 enemies of Christ as an accusation of themselves.

For just as the Samaritans, thinking that the Divine was contained within some local circumscription, were rebuked by the words they heard, 'You worship that which you know not, and useless to you is your service that looks toward God, for a God supposed to be fixed in some place is no God'—so likewise it would properly be said also to the new Samaritans that, by supposing the divine essence to be encompassed, as by a kind of place, within the name of 'ingeneracy,' 'You worship that which you know not,' as men serving God indeed, but ignorant that the indefiniteness of God falls beyond all signification and comprehension derived from names.

But indeed the argument has been carried rather far from the matters before us, following upon the things successively discovered in due sequence.

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

For if, according to them, the natural relation is constituted by the appellation of 'Son' toward the Father, and that of the offspring toward the begetter—their wisdom, by a kind of grammatical trifling, reshaping into the mere form of names the terms significative of the divine nature—then no one could any longer doubt that the relation of the names to one another, which is constituted by nature, becomes a proof of their kinship according to essence, or rather of their identity.

But let our argument take on the opposite voice, lest the doctrine of true religion should seem to be strengthened only by the weakness of those who contend against it, rather than having its strength most of all within itself.

So far as is possible, then, let the opposing argument be confirmed by us ourselves through a more vigorous advocacy, so that the surpassing measure of the strength of truth may be recognized with much confidence, when we ourselves bring forward the things omitted by our opponents into an exact test of the truth.

For perhaps he who takes his stand on the opposing side will say that the designation of 'Son' and 'offspring' does not by any means present the kinship according to nature.

For indeed one is called in Scripture a 'child of wrath' and a 'son of perdition' and 'offspring of vipers,' and surely no community of nature was manifested along with such names.

For Judas, named 'son of perdition,' is not the same as to its underlying subject as perdition itself in its conceived meaning.

For the thing signified by the man Judas is one, and that of perdition is another.

And likewise, from the opposite side, the argument has the same construction.

For those called 'sons of light' and 'sons of the day' are not the same as light and day according to the principle of nature; and the stones become 'children of Abraham' when through faith and works they appropriate kinship with him; and those who are led by the Spirit of God, as the Apostle says, are called 'sons of God,' though not being the same as God according to nature; and many such things can be gathered from the God-inspired Scripture, through which deceit, like some image adorned with the scriptural testimonies, counterfeits the semblance of truth.

For when Scripture speaks of 'sons of men' and 'sons of rams,' it indicates the relation according to essence of the begotten to that from which it came;

but when it speaks of 'sons of power' or 'children of God,' it presents the nearness that comes about through choice.

And indeed, according to the opposite meaning as well, the same men were named both 'sons of Eli' and 'sons of pestilence' (i.e., 'worthless sons'), the appellation of 'sons' fitting aptly to either sense.

For by being called 'sons of Eli' they were testified to have kinship with him according to nature, but being named 'worthless sons' they were accused on account of the depravity of their choice, as not emulating their father in their manner of life, but rather having appropriated to themselves a purpose after the pattern of wickedness.

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

For neither has he who through vice has become a 'child of wrath' been alienated from human birth, nor has he who through choice has appropriated himself to the good thrust away his springing from men by the refinement of his pursuits; but, the nature standing alike in both cases, the differences according to choice put on the names of relationship, becoming either children of God through virtue or of the adversary through vice.

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

But here Eunomius says that 'We do not decline to call the Son, who is generate, an offspring, since the begotten essence itself and the appellation of Son appropriate to themselves such a relation of the names.'

If therefore, because the Son is truly an offspring, he confesses that such a relation of the names is appropriated, how is there occasion to fit such a cause of the names both to those spoken metaphorically by catachresis, and to those in which the natural relation, as Eunomius says, appropriates such a designation? Surely, then, such a thing is true only in the case of those beings whose nature stands on the borderline between virtue and vice, in whose case one often takes the names in opposite ways, becoming now a child of light, now of darkness, according to the inclination toward the good or toward its opposite.

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

For one could not come to this conclusion, that just as a man, having put off the works of darkness, becomes through a decorous life a 'child of light,' so also the Only-begotten God, by a change from the worse, receives the more honorable in place of it.

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

but He who through Himself makes man a son of God does not Himself have need of another Son to bestow adoption upon Him, but is that which He is by nature and is also so named.

A man exchanges himself, bartering the new self for the old;

but into what will God be changed, so as to acquire in addition that which He does not have? A man, having stripped off his old self, puts on the divine nature;

he comes to be of God by taking on what he has not and casting off what he has;

but He who has never been in vice has neither anything to take on nor anything to leave behind.

Again, a man can in one sense be truly called someone's son, when one speaks looking to nature, and in another sense by catachresis, when the choice of his life imposes the name.

But God, being one good thing, in His simple and uncompounded nature, always looks toward the same, and is never changed by the impulses of choice, but always both wills that which He is, and is entirely that which He also wills; so that through both He is properly and truly named 'Son of God,' since His nature has the good within itself and His will is not broken off from the better, so that this term is not applied to Him by catachresis.

There is therefore no room for those things which we set against ourselves in the person of the opponents to be brought forward by our adversaries as a repudiation of the kinship according to nature.

But I know not how, or for what reason, hating and turning away from the truth, they on the one hand name Him 'Son,' yet, in order that the community according to essence should not be attested through this term, having separated the term from the signification inherent in the name, they leave the name of 'Son' empty and meaningless to the Only-begotten, bestowing on Him only the mere sound of the term.

And that I speak these things truly, and do not miss the aim of my opponents, 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 establishment 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 other such things—but that none of these, according to its obvious signification, is it pious to say of the Lord if one understands them literally.

For it would indeed be of things most absurd to think that the bodiless and immaterial, the simple and formless, is shaped by certain significations appearing in the names, so that upon hearing 'axe' one should conceive of such a shape of iron, or of 'light' the airy kind, or of 'vine' the plant from the growth of shoots, or each of the other things according as custom suggests one should conceive.

But rather, transferring the connotations of these names to what is more befitting God, we conceive something else; and even though we thus name Him, it is not as being any of these things according to the principle of nature, but as being called these things, while something else beside these is conceived through the things spoken.

And if such names are truly predicated of the Only-begotten God and yet do not contain the indication of His nature, they say it follows that neither should the signification of 'Son' be taken, according to the prevailing custom, for an interpretation of the nature, but that one should discover some signification of this term also other than the common and obvious one.

These and such things they philosophize for the establishing that the Son is not that which He both is and is called.

But for us the argument was hastening toward something else—namely, to show the recent treatise of Eunomius to be false and inconsistent, and in agreement neither with the truth nor with itself.

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

What then must one say in response to such things so as not to fall short of what is fitting? That, although there are many names, as they themselves say, which are applied to the Only-begotten by Scripture, we say that none of the others has the natural aptness with respect to reference to the begetter.

For we do not, as we say 'son of the father,' in the same way refer 'stone' or 'resurrection' or 'shepherd' or 'light' or any of the others up to the God of all; but it is possible, by a kind of art and rule, to divide the signification of the divine names into two.

For some of them have the indication of the lofty and unutterable glory, while others indicate the manifold character of the providential dispensation;

these terms are assigned to Him which indicate the beneficence.

But as many as interpret that which befits God are fittingly and properly applied to the Only-begotten God even apart from the things administered by His dispensation.

And that such a doctrine may be more clearly disclosed to us, the contemplation shall be upon the names themselves.

The Lord would not have been named 'vine' except for the sake of the planting of those rooted in Him, nor 'shepherd' except because the sheep of the house of Israel had been lost, nor 'physician' except for the sake of the sick, nor would He have taken upon Himself the rest of the names, were He not, through some providential activity, appropriating the terms suitably to those receiving His benefits.

For why need one lengthen the argument by speaking of each detail among things acknowledged? But 'Son' and 'right hand' and 'Only-begotten' and 'Word' and 'Wisdom' and 'Power' and all such names as are spoken relatively, are always co-named with the Father, as in a kind of 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 for each of the names one must discern some signification corresponding to and befitting the subject, so that we may not, by missing the right understanding, offend against the doctrine of true religion.

Just as, therefore, taking each of the other names up to what befits God, we reject the obvious notion concerning them—so as to name neither material light, nor a trodden path, nor a lifeless stone, nor bread from farming, nor a word made of utterances, but instead of these to name those things which set forth the majesty of the power of God the Word—so, if anyone should reject the customary and natural signification of 'Son,' through which we learn His being from the essence of the begetter, 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 was fitted to the indication of the divine power, it altogether follows that the signification of this name too should be transferred to something loftier.

What then could be a more God-befitting conception in the case of the appellation 'Son,' if the natural relation to the begetter were rejected according to the argument of our opponents? For perhaps no one is so bold toward impiety as to think, in discourses concerning the divine nature, that the lowly and grovelling is more fitting than the lofty and great.

If then they discover some conception more sublime than this, so that it should seem unworthy to think concerning the Only-begotten that He is from the nature of the Father, let them say, if they know anything according to their ineffable wisdom, higher than the Father's nature, so that, having raised the Only-begotten God up to that, they may exalt Him above the relation to the Father;

but if the majesty of the divine nature transcends every height and surpasses every power of wonder, what argument remains that would carry the interpretation of the title 'Son' toward something greater? Since, therefore, it is agreed that every term significative of the Only-begotten, even if it be named from lowly custom, is properly spoken when transferred by the conceptions to what is more majestic, and since it is shown that no one can find a conception more sublime than this appellation of 'Son,' which sets forth His genuineness with respect to the begetter—I think there is no need to dwell any longer on the topic, since it has been sufficiently demonstrated through what has been said that it is not fitting that the appellation of 'Son' also be reinterpreted after the likeness of the other names.

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

It is not the part of the same persons both not to decline to call the generate an 'offspring' (for I will 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 naturally-fitting designations into figurative applications;

either the argument for the necessity of calling the begotten an 'offspring' stands, or, if this is said in the fitting sense, then the other argument will be dissolved by what has already been established.

For that which, according to them, is called an 'offspring' because of its being begotten, does not by its very nature admit of being called, on that same account, a 'thing made' and a 'creature.'

For surely the thing signified by each of the two names differs greatly, and it is fitting that one who uses words with reasoning should, looking to the subject, use the terms accordingly, so that we may not suffer some confusion concerning our conceptions, by interchanging the terms in a manner inappropriate to the things signified.

For this reason we call that which is wrought by art the 'work' of the craftsman, but we address as 'son of man' the one who is begotten of him; 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 meaning by a mistaken use of names.

So that of these two alternatives one must necessarily hold true concerning the Only-begotten: if He is Son, He is not to be called a creature; but if He is created, He is estranged from the appellation of Son—just as heaven and earth and sea and all particular things, being creatures, do not assume the title of Son.

But since Eunomius testifies that the Only-begotten God is begotten, and the testimony of enemies is the stronger for establishing the truth, he has by asserting Him to be begotten thereby also testified that He is by all means not created.

But concerning these matters, let this suffice.

For since many arguments flood in upon us, lest their multitude fall into excess, we shall be content with these regarding the questions set before us.

It would now be the fitting moment to examine in our discourse the natural philosophy concerning generation which he has so diligently expounded.

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

'For who is so careless and so unobservant of the nature of things as to be ignorant that, among bodies—those upon the earth which in begetting and being begotten are examined as acting and being acted upon—both the begetters impart of their own substance, and the begotten by nature partake of the same, inasmuch as the material cause and the supply flowing in from without is common; and the begotten are begotten through passion, while the begetters, in accordance with nature, do not possess a pure activity, because their nature is yoked to all such passions.'

See how fittingly, in his speculation about the pre-eternal generation of the Word who was God in the beginning, this scrutinizer of the nature of beings with such precision brings in bodies upon the earth, and material cause, and passion, of begetters and begotten, and all such things—things at which any man of sense would blush even were they spoken of ourselves—while our own passion-ridden nature is put on public display in his discourse.

Such, then, is the illustrious natural philosophy of this word-monger concerning the Only-begotten God.

But we, laying aside all lamentation (for what more could a groan avail us toward the overthrow of the enemies' wickedness?), will publish, as best we can, the sense of what has been said: concerning what kind of begetting the speculation was set forth—that which is constituted according to the flesh, or that which is according to the Only-begotten God.

For since the speculation is twofold—concerning the divine and simple and immaterial life, and concerning the material and passion-bound subsistence—and since begetting is spoken of alike in both cases, it would be necessary to make a clear and unconfused distinction of the things signified, lest by any means the ambiguity of the term 'begetting' should lead the truth astray.

Since, then, the coming into being through the flesh is a certain material thing and is brought forth through passion, while that which is bodiless and impalpable and formless and free from material admixture is estranged from every passion-bound condition, it is fitting to consider concerning which kind of generation the inquiry was: the undefiled and divine, or the passion-ridden and defiled.

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

Then why, publishing abroad the nature and the passions attending human generation, has he abandoned the subject set before him? For we had no need to learn this animal begetting which is constituted through the flesh.

For who is so foolish that, seeing himself and perceiving the human condition within himself, would seek another interpreter of his own nature, and would need to be taught the necessary passions that are contemplated together with the begetting of the body—that the begetter comes to be in passion in one way, and the begotten in another—so that from this instruction man might learn that he both begets through passion and that passion was the beginning of his generation? For these things, whether kept silent or spoken, have equal force; and whether one recount them, publishing the hidden things, or cover over with silence the unspeakable things, we were not ignorant that our nature proceeds through passion.

But what we seek is that the discourse should clarify the lofty and ineffable existence of the Only-begotten, according to which He is believed to be from the Father.

This examination, then, being set before us, the newfangled theologian adds to his discourse flux and passion and material cause and a certain activity not pure of defilement, and a supply flowing in from without, and all such things. I do not know what came over him who claims that, by his surpassing wisdom, nothing of the incomprehensible is left outside his own knowledge, and who professes to interpret the ineffable generation of the Son, that he, departing from the matters set before him, plunges eel-like into the muddy mire of his own reasonings, after the manner of that nocturnal Nicodemus, who, when the Lord was teaching the generation from above, was dragged down by his reasonings to the labor in the womb, and was perplexed as to how one could a second time enter within the belly, saying, 'How can this be?'—supposing that by the impossibility of an old man being carried again in a mother's womb he would prove the spiritual generation to be untenable.

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

For the seeker after truth must, I think, contemplate the matter before him from its own proper principles, and not slander the immaterial through accusations drawn from material things.

For if a man, or an ox, or any other of the things begotten through the flesh, is not pure of passion in begetting or being begotten, what has this to do with the passionless and undefiled nature? For neither does our being mortal cancel the immortality of the Only-begotten, nor does the turning of men toward wickedness render doubtful the immutability of the divine nature, nor is any other of our attributes transferred to God; but there is a certain unmixed and incommunicable distinctness of human and of divine life, and the distinguishing properties are utterly diverse, so that neither are these apprehended in that life, nor conversely those in this.

How then does Eunomius, when the divine generation was set before the discourse, abandoning the subject, go through the things upon the earth, though we have no dispute with him concerning these? Nay, the aim of the artificer is manifest: that by slandering it with reference to passion, he might circumscribe the generation of the Lord.

In these matters I, for my part, passing over the blasphemy, marvel at the man's cunning—how he keeps his own purpose in mind: he who through the aforesaid arguments established that the Son both is and is to be called 'offspring,' now contends that one ought not to conceive of any generation concerning Him.

For if every generation, as he supposes, has yoked to it the disposition of passion, it must by all means be admitted through these arguments that what is estranged from passion is by all means also estranged from generation.

For if these things are conceived as conjoined with one another—passion and generation—that which has no part in one of them could not have communion with the other either.

To confess indeed that He has been begotten, yet not to fashion this notion into the form of a name, so as to address the begotten one as 'offspring'—since this word is properly assigned by Scripture to inanimate things, or to those things taken up as an image of wickedness. But whenever it is said by us that the word 'offspring' ought to be kept silent, he brings forward that irresistible rhetoric of his, calling in as an ally even grammatical frigidity, and through the technical derivation or paronymy of names—or however one ought to call these things—through these he brings his syllogisms to the conclusion of calling the begotten one 'offspring,' by no means declining to do so.

But when, having accepted this, we contemplate the notion of the name as thereby indicating together the commonness of the substance, again he takes back his own words and strenuously maintains that the offspring was not begotten, circumscribing the pure and divine and passionless generation of the Lord by the defiled natural philosophy of bodily birth—as though it were not possible for the two to concur at the same time in God, namely, both genuineness in relation to the Father and impassibility of nature; but if there be impassibility, then there is no generation, and if one confess the genuineness, then he must by all means also admit passion together with the generation.

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

For behold how he prepares the ear 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, slipping from ignorance into some absurd notions.

For that he might lead the untrained ear as far as possible away from passion, he did not in the prologue say 'Son,' nor 'Father,' nor 'generation,' lest anyone, hearing at the outset either of a Father, should be dragged down to the ready-to-hand impression of the name, or, learning that a Son was proclaimed, should conceive of the name according to the usage here below, or should stumble at the word 'generation' as at a stone of stumbling.

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

What passion is there in these words, tell me—'Beginning' and 'was' and 'Word'? Is 'Beginning' passion? Is 'was' in passion? Is 'the Word' through passion? Or, because there is no passion in what has been said, is not also the proper meaning made to shine forth together in the proclamation? And indeed, how could there be more clearly manifested the commonness and genuineness according to substance, and the co-eternity of the Word with the Beginning, than through these words? For he did not say 'from the Beginning the Word was begotten,' lest by some notion of temporal duration he should sever the Word from the Beginning; but together with the Beginning he proclaimed also Him who is in the Beginning, saying that 'was' is common to both the Beginning and the Word, lest the Word should come later, after the Beginning, but should anticipate 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.'