Against Eunomius 1 part 43/56

For if, on the one hand, begetting from something shows the substance of the begetter in the begotten, while, on the other, the artful fashioning, being accomplished through activity and passion, brings—according to his account—the agent and the thing produced into communion of substance; then, since the treatise-writer in many places of his own writings maintains that the Lord was begotten, it follows that by the very means through which he estranges the Lord from the substance of the Father, by these same means he attests to Him a conjunction with Him.

For if, according to his account, the separation of substance is discerned neither through begetting nor through fashioning, then—whatever he may grant the Lord to be, whether created or begotten—through both he has attested the kinship according to substance, he who, in the agent and the patient, in the begetter and the begotten, has technically framed the communion of nature.

But let us turn to what follows in the discourse.

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

For the peril is not concerning trifling matters, such that, by passing over some of the things that require a more painstaking contemplation, we should suffer only a slight loss in a small matter; rather, it is the very sum of our hope that is imperiled.

For what is set before us is either to be Christians, not swept along together by the heretical ruin, or else altogether to be dragged down into Jewish and pagan suppositions.

In order, then, that we may suffer neither of the forbidden things—neither, by denying the Son who was truly begotten, being carried along with Jewish doctrines, nor, by worshiping the creature, falling together into the downfall of idolaters—we must of necessity dwell further upon the discourse concerning these things, setting forth the very statement of Eunomius, which runs thus:

…to receive the appellations of offspring and work and creature;

'but the Son alone,' he says, 'having subsisted by the activity of the Father, has both a nature and a relation to the begetter that is incommunicable.'

Such, then, are the things he has said.

But let us first take note of the enemies' fight against themselves, becoming like certain spectators of foes at 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 activity of the Father, has an incommunicable relation to the begetter.'

Yet in the things before this he says that he does not decline to call the begotten one an offspring, since the very begotten substance and the appellation of the Son claim for themselves such a relation of the names.

Since, then, the contrariety in the things said is thus manifest, it occurs to me to marvel at the praisers of this doctrine for their acumen.

For it would be a matter of perplexity to which of the things said by him they might turn without erring in respect of what remains.

The former argument had established for him that the begotten substance and the appellation of the Son claim for themselves such a relation of the names.

The present technical treatment says the opposite—that the Son has an incommunicable relation to the begetter.

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

if they incline toward this one, they will take a stand against the former supposition.

For behold, not even when torn apart by the contrariety of the doctrines do they have any perception of the fault, but they are carried about by the ears, like amphoras, wheeled around toward whatever seems good to the one who shifts them.

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

at once, like men nodding off to sleep, they nodded assent to what was said.

He shifted his argument again to the contrary, and denies the Son's relation to the begetter;

again his dearest ones nod their assent to this too, just as the shadows of bodies, by an automatic imitation, are transfigured together according to the movement of the one who goes before, inclining toward whatever he wishes—even if he fights against himself—and accepting this as well.

This is some other Homeric potion, not changing the bodies of those drugged into the shapes of irrational beasts, but working upon their souls the transformation toward irrationality.

For concerning those the story says that their mind remained steadfast, though the form was altered toward the beastly;

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

And just as there the poetic marvel says that those who were drugged were changed into the shapes of different beasts according to what pleased her who beguiles nature, the same things now come about also from this Circean bowl.

For those who drink of the bewitching deceit from this same treatise are transformed into the various shapes of doctrines, being molded now into this one and again into the other.

And in addition to these things, the sweetest fellows, after the fashioning of the fable, still love the one who expounds to them such irrationality, and, bowed down like some fruit of a cornel tree or an acorn, they pick up the words scattered abroad by him, running greedily, like swine, to the doctrines flung on the ground, having no nature to gaze intently upon things lofty and heavenly.

For this reason they do not perceive the twisting of the argument to its opposite, but seize without examination whatever comes their way, of whatever kind it may be.

having deadened his understanding through the deception.

Now it is indeed a grievous thing to be caught unawares by hidden snares through some fallacy that escapes notice; yet the misfortune is pardonable when it is involuntary.

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

For how is it not worthy of lamentation, when we hear that even among fish the greedy ones flee the bare iron when it draws near, yet, deceived by the bait in hope of food, they gulp down the hook; whereas to desert of one's own will to this destruction in cases where the evil is manifest is more wretched than the irrationality of fish?

For the fish were drawn to hidden destruction through gluttony, but these men gape at the bare hook of impiety, loving destruction through a certain irrational passion.

For what could be more manifest than this contradiction, than to say that the same One both was begotten and is a created thing, and possesses what belongs to the appellation of Son, and again is estranged from the signification of Son? But let this suffice for these matters.

But it would perhaps be useful to view the whole thought of the passage of Eunomius set before us in due order, going back to the beginning of the argument.

For the points just examined, on account of the obvious contradiction of what was said, readily moved us to begin our refutation from the last portions.

Now this is what was said by Eunomius at the outset:

"These things being thus distinguished, one might reasonably say that the most proper and first and only essence, which subsists by the activity of the Father, receives into itself the appellations of offspring and product and created thing."

First, then, I wish to remind those who attend to the argument that in his first treatise he calls the essence of the Father also 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 essence.

And here he calls the essence of the Only-begotten most proper and first.

Therefore, gathering from each book the utterances of Eunomius, we shall set him forth as witness to the commonness of the essence—the very one who elsewhere declared this: that of those whose appellations are the same, neither is the nature different.

For he who contradicts himself would not have signified as separated in nature by the identity of appellations.

But since the account of the essence is one in Father and Son, for this reason he certainly says that the one is most proper, and this one also most proper.

And the common usage of men bears witness to the argument, applying "most proper" to nothing to which the name does not truthfully belong according to its nature.

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

And likewise the word of Scripture knows how to call an idol and a demon and a belly "god," but the appellation does not therefore also possess propriety; and all the rest in the same manner.

One is said to have eaten according to a dream-vision, but it is not possible to call the vision proper eating.

Just as, then, in the case of two men subsisting equally according to nature, we properly name each of them by the word "man"; but if one should reckon together the lifeless image with the true man, he might perhaps say there are two men, both the one truly existing and the likeness, yet he would no longer attest propriety to both alike—so too, if the nature of the Only-begotten were supposed to be something other than the essence of the Father, the treatise-writer would not have named each of the essences most proper.

For how could anyone signify things that differ in nature by the identity of names? But it seems that the truth is made manifest even through those who war against it, since falsehood is by no means able to prevail over truth even in the utterances of its enemies.

For this reason the word of piety is proclaimed by the mouth of the adversaries who do not know what they say.

The saving suffering of the Lord on our behalf was foretold by one who did not know what he said.

Therefore, if "most proper" is common to the essence in both—I mean of the Father and of the Son—what room is there for saying that the essences differ from one another? Or how is there discerned in them a difference in respect of the more powerful and greater and more honorable, since the most proper essence admits of no diminution? For that which exists imperfectly, whatever it may be, is not properly, is not nature, not power, not dignity, nor any other of the things contemplated in each case; so that the superiority of the Father according to essence, as the heresy wishes, convicts the essence of the Only-begotten of imperfection.

But if it is most proper, it is also altogether perfect.

For that which is deficient does not have the property of being named "perfect" in nature.

But neither, 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 in both is one, as upon a measuring-rod, neither hollowed by what falls short nor made uneven by what exceeds.

One may then see sufficiently from what has been said the advocacy of Eunomius on behalf of the doctrine held among us—or rather, not his zeal on our behalf, but his battle against himself.

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

But let us again follow what is written according to its very wording, so that it may become manifest to all that, apart from the wish to do mischief, the argument they offer has no strength for evil.

Let us then hear what was said:

"One might reasonably say that the most proper and first and only essence, which subsists by the activity of the Father, receives into itself the appellations of offspring and product and created thing."

Who does not know that what separates the Church from the heresy is the word "created thing" spoken of the Son? Therefore, since the difference in doctrine is acknowledged by all, what would it have been more reasonable for the one who undertakes to show that his own suppositions are truer than ours to do—namely, to establish his own argument, demonstrating by whatever means possible that one must think the Lord to be created; or, passing this by, to legislate to his hearers as agreed the things that are in dispute? For my part, I say the former.

And perhaps all who share in understanding will demand this of the objectors: that having first set the beginning of the argument upon some incontrovertible foundation, they thus contend in what follows.

This man, then, having abandoned the establishment of the point that one must think Him created, runs through what comes next, fitting the sequence of reasonings to a groundless assumption—the very thing suffered by those who plunge deep in their soul into vain desires, dissolving themselves in thoughts toward a kingdom or toward some other of the things eagerly sought.

They do not consider how any of the things eagerly sought by them might come to be, but as though it were already present they dispose it for themselves and manage their good fortune according to their fancy, wandering by a certain pleasure among things that have no existence.

So too our wise treatise-writer, having somehow—I know not where—lulled to sleep his much-vaunted dialectic, before demonstrating anything concerning the matter under inquiry, recites, as it were to some children, this deceptive and unestablished nonsense of his own doctrine, setting it forth like some drunken tale.

For he says that the essence which subsists by the activity of the Father receives the appellation of offspring and product and created thing.

What argument has demonstrated that the Son subsisted by some creative activity, while the nature of the Father remained inactive with respect to the subsistence of the Son? For this was the very thing in dispute and under inquiry: whether the essence of the Father begot the Son, or whether something of the things external that accompany the nature wrought Him.

the godheads would fall under number, which is nothing other than to introduce polytheism again into life. Now while the Church teaches in her simple way these things—that from the essence of the true God the Only-begotten is by essence true God—how ought one to overturn the preconceived supposition of him who resists what is acknowledged? Was it not by establishing the opposing argument, jointly demonstrating the doubtful point through some acknowledged first principle? I do not think that anyone who has understanding would seek anything else besides these.

But this man begins from the disputed points, and gives the matter in doubt, as though demonstrated, as a starting point to the argument that follows.

For if it had first been demonstrated that the Son subsisted through some activity, what battle would there have been against the consequent—namely, to say that the essence which subsisted through some activity receives into itself the appellation of product? But so long as the antecedent remains unestablished, how does the consequent have strength? Let the advocates of deceit tell us.

For even if someone should grant, by hypothesis, that man became winged, he will no longer contend about what follows.

For the one who became winged will somehow also fly, and will raise himself above the earth, borne aloft through the air upon wings.

But it must be considered how one who has not been allotted an airborne nature could become winged; and if this is not the case, it is vain to go through what comes after it.

Let him too, then, first demonstrate this: that the Church has believed in vain that the Only-begotten is truly Son—not adopted by convention into a falsely-named father, but by nature begotten, existing from Him who exists, not alienated from the nature of the One who begot.

Let him first convict these things as false, and then, going through the consequences, he will be persuasive.

But so long as the first point remains undemonstrated, it is a mark of foolish babbling to linger over the secondary matters.

And let no one interrupt me by demanding that what is acknowledged on our side also be ratified by demonstration.

For it suffices for the demonstration of our argument that the tradition has come down to us from the Father, handed on, like some inheritance, by succession from the apostles through the holy ones who came after.

But those who transfer the doctrines to this novelty would need much assistance from reasonings, if they intend to win over not the dust-like and easily-swayed among men, but also those weighty and steadfast in their minds.

But so long as the argument is put forth by them unestablished and undemonstrated, who is so foolish and brutish as to make the teaching of the evangelists and apostles and those who shone forth afterward in the churches weaker than undemonstrated babble? But let us also see the most hard-to-detect feature of the treatise-writer's cleverness, how by his abundance of dialectical experience he artfully draws the more guileless to the opposite.

He threw in, alongside the appellation of product and created thing, also the word "offspring," saying that the essence of the Son receives these names into itself; and, as though haranguing in an assembly of drunkards, he thinks that his mischief concerning the doctrine will be detected by no one.

For by joining "offspring" to "created thing" and "product," he thinks to steal away the difference according to the signification of the names, through the conjunction of things that have nothing in common.

These are the wise contrivances of dialectic.

But we, the untrained in speech, do not deny that we are, according to voice and tongue, that which the argument shows concerning us; yet we confess that ears too, as the prophet says, have been fashioned for us for intelligent hearing.

Wherefore we are in no way led, through the conjunction of names that have nothing in common, into a confusion of the things signified.

But even if the great Apostle names together wood and hay and stubble, gold and silver and precious stones, we both reckon up the number of the things mentioned under one head, and we shall not fail to recognize the nature of each of the things named individually.

and, when "offspring" and "product" are mentioned together, passing from the words to the things signified, we do not behold the same meaning in each of the names.

For "created thing" signifies one thing and "offspring" another, so that even if he mixes what cannot be mixed, the intelligent hearer will hear with discernment and will show it to be among the impossible things that the appellation of offspring and that of created thing should receive one and the same nature into itself.

For if the one of these be true, the other will of necessity be false, so that if it be a created thing, it is not offspring; and conversely, if it be called offspring, it is estranged from the designation of created thing.

But Eunomius says that the essence of the Son receives into itself the appellations of offspring and product and created thing.

Has he by any of the remaining points secured this headless and rootless argument (seeing that no power was laid down through the first points toward what he seeks to establish)? Or do the rest also hold to the same futility, having gained their strength not from any assistance of reasonings, but presenting the exposition of blasphemy in a discursive and unestablished manner, as in the recounting of dreams? For, appending these things to what was said, he says that it "has its begetting without mediation, and inseparably preserves its relation to the one who begot and made and created."

For if, setting aside the "without mediation" and "inseparable," we contemplate in itself the meaning of the words, we shall find that everywhere the nonsensical character of the teaching, strengthened by no argument, is cast upon the ears of the deceived.

"The one who begot," he says, "and created and made."

These, even if they seem to be three, contain the signification of two notions, since the two words are equivalent to one another in meaning.

For "to make" is the same as "to create," but "begetting" is other than the things mentioned.

Since, then, the common supposition of men is divided into different notions from the signification of the words, what argument has shown us that the product is the same as the begetting, so that we should fit the one essence to the difference of the words? For so long as the customary signification of the terms prevails and no argument is found that recasts the impressions of the words into the opposite, it is not admissible that any one nature should be split apart toward the notion of product and of offspring.

For since each of these terms, when spoken of by itself, has its own peculiar meaning, it is altogether necessary that there be conceived together with the names a proper and kindred correlation as well, that is, the relative conjunction.

For the rest of the terms that are spoken relatively do not have their proper affinity toward what is alien and unsuitable; but even if that to which they are referred be passed over in silence, of itself, together with the primary term, the correlated term also is heard.

such as craftsman, slave, friend, son, and the like.

For all things that are contemplated in reference to another present, through their appellation, the affinity proper and conjoined to what is indicated, each having toward what is of a different kind a fellowship that is unmingled.

For neither is the name of the craftsman conjoined to the son, nor is the word 'slave' referred to the craftsman, nor did 'friend' indicate the slave, nor 'son' the master; but we recognize the clear and distinct correlation of each of these toward its own counterpart, understanding through 'friend' another friend, through 'slave' the lord, and the work through 'craftsman,' and through 'son' the father.

In this way, then, both 'offspring' and 'thing made' have their proper significance in reference to something.

Therefore the begetter is conjoined to the offspring, and the maker to the thing made; and it is altogether necessary—if we are not to introduce some confusion of realities through an interchange of names—to preserve for each of the things spoken relatively the meaning that properly accompanies it.

Does he think it fitting that the term 'offspring' should apply to the maker and 'thing made' to the begetter, saying that the essence of the Son receives into itself the appellations of offspring and thing made and creature, yet preserves undivided its relation to the one who begot and made and created? For it is not in the nature of one single thing to be parceled out into diverse relations; rather, the Son is made proper to the Father, and the begotten to the begetter, while the thing made has its reference to the maker.

unless, that is, one should suppose some misuse—in an indifferent habit of speech—to be more authoritative than the proper signification.

By what reasonings, then, and by what constructions—according to that invincible dialectic of his—does he, having reversed the opinions of the many into their opposite, expound at will these things: that, while the God over all is conceived and spoken of as Creator and Father, the Son is fittingly disposed toward both appellations, being called equally both creature and offspring? For since the customary and precise usage of speech properly distinguishes such names—applying the name of begetting to those begotten from the very essence itself, but the name of creation to those constituted outside the nature of the one who fashions them, and since, for this reason, the divine doctrines have in the tradition of the knowledge of God handed down 'Father' and 'Son,' not 'Creator' and 'work,' lest any corruption toward blasphemy arise, thrusting the Son off into what is alien and foreign to such an appellation, and lest the godless doctrines that separate the Only-begotten from His essential kinship with the Father find any entrance—he who says that the appellation of 'thing made' is fitting to the Son will surely say, by consistent reasoning, that the title of 'Son' properly belongs also to the thing made, so that, if the Son is a creature, then the heaven too is a son, and each of the individual things that have come to be is, according to this word-monger, properly named by the appellation of 'Son.'

For if that One has the name not by sharing in the nature of the one who begot, but is named 'son' in so far as He is created, the same argument will grant that the lamb and the dog and the frog and all things that came into existence by the will of the maker are to be named by the appellation of 'Son.'

But if each of these, because it is outside the nature of God, is neither a son nor called God, then by all consistency the One who is properly Son, because He is from the very nature of the one who begot Him, is Son and is confessed to be God.

But he loathes the concept of begetting and banishes it from the divine doctrines, slandering the name by a fleshly physiology.

But the argument in what has preceded has sufficiently demonstrated concerning these matters that, according to the prophet, they 'fear a fear where there is no fear.'

For if even among men not every begetting was shown to be constituted with passion, but the material begetting is through passion, while the spiritual is pure and undefiled—for that which is begotten of the Spirit becomes spirit and not flesh, and no passible disposition is contemplated together with the Spirit—since through the examples that are ours it appeared necessary to the word-monger to reckon up the divine power, let him persuade himself, from the other mode of begetting, to conceive the impassibility that pertains to the divine begetting.

But having confounded these three appellations with one another—of which two are equivalent in force—he thinks by the community of meaning of the two terms to snatch away his hearers into supposing the third likewise.

For since the appellation of 'thing made' and 'creature' indicates that the thing produced is outside the nature of the one who made it, he attaches to these the term 'offspring,' so that this too may be interpreted together with the aforesaid terms.

But such a form of argument is called villainy and deceit and trickery, not some carefully considered and skillful demonstration.

No one of sound mind would call the demonstration of those who, as the Apostle says, are 'corrupted in mind' a skillful demonstration.

But let us pass on to what follows in sequence.

He says that the begetting is without any intermediary from the essence, and that it preserves undividedly the relation toward the one who begot and made and created.

If, then, having said that the begetting of the essence is undivided and without intermediary, he had stopped his argument there, he would not have been turned aside from the pious supposition; since by us too the Son's conjunction with the Father is confessed to be close-joined and without intermediary, so that there is nothing interposed in between them—no notion of interval, not even that instantaneous and indivisible point which, when time is cut into the past and the future, is conceived by itself indivisibly in the present, being able to become part neither of the past nor of the future, because it is wholly without extension and indivisible and, to whatever it is added, imperceptible.

So then we say that what is purely immediate is mediated by nothing of this sort.

For that which is separated by some intermediary would no longer be immediate.

If, then, he too, having said that the begetting of the Son is without intermediary, had adduced none of the things mentioned, he would have been teaching the piously conceived conjunction of the Son with the Father.

But since, as though repenting of what he had said, he straightway added that it preserves the relation toward the one who begot and made and created, he defiled the former statements with the latter, mingling the blasphemous term with the pure argument.