Against Eunomius 1 part 47/56

Believing, then, that the undefiled and impassible and uncreated nature came to be in the passible state of the creation, and understanding the alteration in this way, how are we accused of saying that He was emptied into Himself, by those who noisily foist their own account upon our doctrines? For the communion of the created with the created is no alteration of the right hand.

For to say that the right hand of the uncreated nature is created belongs to Eunomius alone and to those who think the like of him.

For he who has an eye that looks toward the truth, whatever manner of the Most High he beholds, of that same manner will he also perceive the right hand of the Most High to be: uncreated of the uncreated, good of the good, eternal of the eternal, its eternity being in no way diminished by the fact that it is in the Father by way of generation.

So that the accuser has, without noticing it, used his own reproaches against himself.

Since the nature does not admit suffering, but the Son, on account of His condescension and His stooping to fellowship with sufferings—being deficient and set at variance—came down to it, I wish to add these things to what has been said: that in truth nothing is a passion which does not lead to sin, nor would anyone properly call the necessary sequence of nature a passion, seeing the composite nature proceeding along its way in a certain order and consequence.

For the concurrence of the elements of different natures with one another, in the constitution of our body, is a kind of composition harmonized out of many dissimilar things.

And when, at the appointed time, the harmony that bound together the concurrence of the elements is dissolved, again the composite is resolved into those things out of which it was constituted.

This, then, is rather a work, and not a passion, of nature.

For only that which is conceived as opposed to the impassibility that pertains to virtue do we properly call passion; and we have not believed that He who bestows salvation upon us remained without a share even in the fellowship of our nature—He who was tempted in all things according to our likeness, apart from sin.

Of the passion, then, that is truly so called—which is a disease of the will—He had no share.

For, it says, He committed no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.

But of the properties of our nature, which by a certain custom and abuse of terms are homonymously called passions, we confess that the Lord partook: birth and nourishment and growth, sleep and toil, and all that the soul is naturally disposed to undergo together with the body's distresses—the desire for what is lacking extending from the body to the soul in the form of appetite—and the sensation of grief and fear before death and all such things, except only insofar as any of them leads on to the consequence of sin.

Just, therefore, as when we consider His power that penetrates through all things—in heaven and air and earth and sea, and whatever is above the heavens and whatever is beneath the earth—we believe Him to be everywhere and through all things, yet we do not say that He is any of those things in which He is (for it is not heaven that has comprehended Him with the span that grasps the universe, nor earth that holds Him who holds the circle of the earth, nor again water that surrounds Him who encompasses the moist nature); so neither do we say that He became passible by coming through the so-called sufferings of the flesh. Rather, as the cause of all that exists, and grasping the universe, and by the ineffable power of His own majesty guiding all that moves and preserving all that stands upon a firm base, we say also that He came to be among us for the healing of the disease of sin, fitting the working of His medicine to match the affliction, so that, as He knew to be profitable to the ailing part of the creation, He thus applied the cure.

And it was profitable to heal the affliction by contact;

[and thus, though He healed] not, indeed, because He treats the sickness, is He on that account also supposed to have become passible;

for not even in the case of human beings does common usage allow one to say such a thing.

For we say that the one who therapeutically touches the sick person does not himself share in the sickness, but rather bestows on the sick one the return to health, and does not share in the sickness;

for the passion is not his; on the contrary, it is he who lays hold of the sickness.

If, then, the one who by his art works some good upon bodies is called not sluggish and sick, but a lover of mankind and a benefactor and the like, why do they, slandering the dispensation concerning us as lowly and inglorious, construct out of this that the essence of the Son has been changed for the worse—as though the nature of the Father were above the sufferings, but that of the Only-begotten not pure of passion? For if the aim of the dispensation through the flesh was not that the Lord should become passible, but that His love for mankind should be displayed, and if it is not doubted that the Father too is a lover of mankind, then the Father is in the same case as the Son—if one is willing to look to the aim.

But if it was not the Father who worked the dissolution of death, marvel not at all.

[He is able] either to save the one who was perishing or to judge the one who has sinned, doing these things through the Son, but doing them also by His own power, through which He works all things;

and the power of the Father is the Son.

Therefore those who are saved through the Son are saved by the power of the Father, and those who are judged by Him undergo judgment by the righteousness of God.

For Christ is the righteousness of God revealed through the gospel, as the apostle says; and whether you look to the whole world or to the parts of the world that make up the whole, all these are the works of the Father, having come to be as the works of His power. And thus the account speaks truly in both respects, both in saying that the Father works all things, and that without the Son nothing of what exists comes to be.

For the working of the power has its reference back to the One whose power it is.

Since, then, the Son is the power of the Father, all the works of the Son are the works of the Father.

For that He comes to the dispensation of the passion not by weakness of nature, but by the authority of His will, one may adduce countless utterances from the gospel—which I will pass over because of their plainness, lest the discourse be prolonged by dwelling on things already agreed.

If, then, what came to pass were evil, one must separate from the evil not only the Father but also the Son;

but if the salvation of those who were lost is good, and what came to pass is not passion but love for mankind, why do you estrange the Father from the thanksgiving offered for our salvation—the Father who, through His own power, which is Christ, wrought out for men the freedom from death? But we must return again to the vehement composer of speeches and take up once more that strained rhetoric of his against us.

He blames us for not saying that the essence of the Son was made, as though we were opposing the utterance of Peter:

'God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified'; and he is much indignant over this, and reviles us, and constructs, through the things by which he supposes he is refuting, our own argument.

Let us, then, look at the force of his arguments.

'And who,' he says, 'O you most slothful of all men, having the form of a servant, takes on the form of a servant?' No one who has sense, we shall say to him, would say such a thing, except perhaps some who are altogether estranged from the hope of Christians.

But these are you yourselves, who charge us with slothfulness because we do not consent to call the Creator created.

For if the Holy Spirit does not lie when it says through the prophet, 'All things are Thy servants,' and all creation serves, but the Son is, according to you, created, then He is surely a fellow-servant with all things, being dragged down, by His sharing in creation, into sharing also in servitude.

And upon Him who serves you will assuredly also clothe the servile form.

For, confessing Him to be a servant by nature, you will surely not be ashamed of the mask of servitude.

Who then, O sharpest of orators, is it that transfers the Son from the servile form into another form of a servant? Is it the one who bears witness that He is uncreated—to whom, along with this, the not-serving is also demonstrated—or rather is it you who cry aloud outright that the Son is a servant of the Father even before the form of the servant, and is lorded over by Him? I need no other judges; to you I entrust the verdict on these matters.

For I think that none would be so shameless toward the truth as to set themselves, through impudence, against things agreed.

For what is being said is manifest to everyone: that what is a servant by nature is characterized by the properties of servitude;

for creation is the property of servitude.

He, then, who says that He, being a servant, entered into our form, is surely the one who removes the Only-begotten from servitude into servitude.

But he presses on in what he has said and, going a little further down, says (for I will now pass over the things in between, since they have been moderately examined in what precedes)—slandering us as bold in speaking and thinking impossible things, and, having called us most pitiable, he adds these words:

'When He had emptied Himself,' as Basil says, 'the man who is seen emptied himself into the form of a servant; and He who emptied Himself into the form of a servant emptied Himself into the coming-to-be of a man'; the man who is seen emptied himself into the coming-to-be of a man.

Perhaps, then, the malice and folly of the argument's construction have already been caught out at once, in the judgment of those who have heard what was read.

Nevertheless, in a few words a refutation of what he has said shall be added also on our part—not so much to overturn this uneducated sophism, which of itself is overturned among those who have ears to hear, but so that we may not seem, under the pretext of despising the cheapness of the argument, to overlook the matter proposed as though it were beyond examination.

Let us then examine the argument in this way.

What is the utterance of the Apostle? 'Let it be known,' he says, 'that God has made him both Lord and Christ.'

Then, as though someone were inquiring toward whom such grace had come, he points out the subject as it were with his finger, saying, 'This Jesus whom you crucified.'

What does Basil say concerning this? That the demonstrative utterance of the passage declares that he who was crucified by the very hearers has been made Christ and Lord.

'For you,' he says, 'crucified him.'

And it was likely that those who had demanded his death were the very hearers of the discourse;

for the time from the cross up to Peter's public address was not long.

What, then, does Eunomius bring forward against this? 'If it is not concerning the Word who was in the beginning and who was God that blessed Peter is speaking, but concerning him who was seen and who emptied himself, as Basil says—now the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a servant'—hold on! Who says this, that again the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a servant? Or who maintains that before his manifestation through the flesh the passion of the cross took place? For neither was the cross before the body, nor the body before the form of the servant.

But God is manifested in the flesh; and the flesh which displayed God in itself, after it had through itself fulfilled the great mystery of death, is transformed toward that which is exalted and divine, having by commingling become Christ and Lord, transposed and changed into that which he was who manifested himself in that flesh.

But if we say these things, this champion of the truth argues that we are again saying that he who was displayed on the cross was emptied into the generation of another man, composing his sophism thus, word for word: 'If the man who was seen,' he says, 'emptied himself into the form of a servant, and he who emptied himself into the form of a servant emptied himself into the generation of a man, then the man who was seen emptied himself into the generation of a man.'

Ah, how well he remembers the task before him! How he draws his argument to a conclusion in accord with his aim! Basil says that the Apostle declared the man who was seen to have been made Christ and Lord;

but this clever and shrewd overturner of what has been said says: 'If Peter does not say that the substance of him who was in the beginning has been made, but the man who was seen emptied himself into the form of a servant, and he who emptied himself into the form of a servant emptied himself into the generation of a man, then the man who was seen emptied himself into the generation of a man.'

We are worsted, Eunomius, by this invincible wisdom.

It has been convicted with full force that the Apostle's word does not look to him who was crucified out of weakness—by the very things through which we learned that, if we should believe this to be so, then again the man who was seen becomes another man, being emptied into another generation of a man.

Does he become what he was not before? Just as, then, he who knew no sin becomes sin, that he might take away the sin of the world, so again the flesh that received the Lord becomes Christ and Lord—that which it was not by nature—being transformed into this by the commingling.

By these things we learn that neither would God have been manifested in the flesh, had not the Word become flesh, nor would the flesh belonging to the man about him have been transformed toward the divine, had not that which appeared become Christ and Lord.

But they spurn the plainness of our preaching—those who by their syllogisms trespass into the substance of God, and who wish to prove that he who brought all beings into existence through creation is himself a part of creation; and as an ally for such zeal, to establish the blasphemy, they drag in the utterance of Peter, who said to the Jews, 'Let it be known to all the house of Israel that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.'

They put forward this as their proof that the substance of the only-begotten God is created.

What then, tell me? Were not the Jews, to whom the word came, in existence before the ages? Was the cross before the world? Was Pilate before all creation? Was Jesus first, and the Word afterward? Is the flesh older than the Godhead? Did Gabriel bring the good tidings to Mary before the world? Is it not that the man according to Christ takes his beginning through birth in the reign of Caesar Augustus, while the Word who was in the beginning is God, our King before the ages, as the prophecy testifies? Do you not see what confusion you bring upon the argument, turning things upside down, as the proverb says? It was the fiftieth day after the passion when Peter publicly proclaimed these things to the Jews, saying, 'This one, whom you crucified, God has made Christ and Lord.'

Do you not attend to the order of the statement—what is first and what is second in what was said? For he did not say, 'Whom God made Lord, you crucified,' but 'Whom you,' he says, 'crucified, this one God made both Christ and Lord'—so that it is clear from this that Peter speaks not of that which is before the ages, but of that which is after the dispensation.

How then do you not see that the whole thought of the passage turns upon the one who is being pointed out, but instead you play the fool in the puerile contrivance of your sophism, saying: 'If we have believed that the Christ and Lord who appeared was made by God, it is necessary that the Lord again be emptied into a man and put on a second birth'? How is your dogma the more strengthened by these things? How is the substance of the King of creation proved to be created through what has been said? For I, on the contrary, affirm that our position is advocated by the very things fighting against us, and that from his excessive attentiveness the orator has failed to notice that, while forcing the argument toward absurdity, by the very means through which he attempts to overturn, he is fighting on the side of those he wars against.

For if it must be believed that the transposition of the Son came about from the surpassing to the lowly, and if only the divine and uncreated nature is above creation, while man is created, then perhaps, seeing through by his own argument toward the truth, he will change sides, agreeing that the uncreated came to be in the created out of love for mankind.

But if he thinks to prove the Lord created by showing that, being God, he partook of human nature, many such things will be found that fill up the plea for equating them, from the like case.

For indeed, since he was Word and was God, 'and afterward,' as the prophet says, 'he was seen upon the earth and dwelt among men'—by these things he will be proved to be one of the creatures.

But if these things are far from what is being sought, then neither are the like cases at all appropriate to the matters at hand.

For it is equal, in point of meaning, to say that the Word who was in the beginning was afterward manifested to men through flesh, and that, being in the form of God, he put on the form of the servant.

And of these, if the one is useless for establishing the blasphemy, it is necessary also to cast away the remaining one along with it.

He both makes us shift away from error and points out the truth which he himself establishes.

'The Word,' he says, 'who was in the beginning and was God—this one the Apostle Peter teaches to have been made.'

But if he were feigning dreams for us and proclaiming a divination of sleep, there would perhaps be no danger in conceding to him to bring forth the riddles of his fancy as seemed good to him;

but since he professes to expound the divine utterances, it is no longer safe for us to grant him, by his own authority, to misinterpret the words.

What does the Scripture say? That 'God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified.'

Therefore, when all things concur to the same point—the demonstrative utterance of him who was named in human fashion, the accusation of those who committed the murder, the passion of the cross—of necessity the understanding looks toward that which appeared.

But he says that Peter speaks these things, yet indicates through the word 'made' the pre-eternal substance.

But while it is without danger to allow nurses or old women to play with children and to twist the impressions of dreams as seems good to them;

yet when the God-inspired utterance is set before us for exposition, the great Apostle forbids us to admit old wives' empty talk.

For when I hear 'cross,' I understand the cross; and when I am taught a human name, I see the nature signified by the name.

Therefore, having learned from Peter that this one who came to be before our eyes was made Lord and Christ, I do not doubt to say so, since the saints also agree with one another in all other things and in this part as well.

For as he himself says that the crucified one was made Lord, so also Paul says that he was highly exalted after the passion and the resurrection—not in respect of that whereby he is God, being exalted in that respect (for what lies higher than the divine height, so as to say that God is exalted toward it?), but he says that the lowliness of human nature was highly exalted, the word showing, I think, the assimilation and union of the assumed man toward the height of the divine nature.

This, then, we believe that the great Peter also signifies when he says that he who was on the cross was made Lord, having through the union in all respects with the divine become that which the divine is.

But even if one should grant him to misinterpret the divine utterance, not even so will the argument be brought to a conclusion in favor of the aim of the heresy.

For let it be granted that Peter says concerning him who was in the beginning that 'God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified';

for we find that not even through this does the blasphemy gain any strength against the truth.

'God,' he says, 'has made him both Lord and Christ.'

To which, then, of the things said must we refer the word 'made'? To which of the terms lying in the phrase shall we fit the utterance? For there are three things set forth: 'this one,' and 'Lord,' and 'Christ.'

To which of these will he join the word 'made'? But no one is so bold against the truth as to say that 'made' does not look toward the 'Christ' and 'Lord';

for Peter says that he who was whatever he ever was has been made Christ and Lord by the Father.

The argument is not mine, but belongs to the very one who fights against the truth.

For in these very things set before us for examination he speaks, saying thus, in these words:

'Concerning him who was in the beginning and was God, blessed Peter is speaking, and he teaches that this one has become Lord and Christ.'

But surely the Scripture says that these things came to be concerning the Son of God.

Let us then examine what is the more pious and consistent view.

Of whom is it reverent to say that he partakes, by progress, of something higher—God or man? Who is so childish in understanding as to think that the divine is borne toward perfection by addition? But to suppose such a thing concerning human nature is not outside the bounds of likelihood, since the utterance of the Gospel clearly testifies of the Lord an increase in respect of the human;

for 'Jesus,' it says, 'advanced in stature and wisdom and grace.'

And again, as from the Father to the Lord: 'Rule,' it says, 'in the midst of your enemies,' saying the same thing to Peter as 'Become Lord of your enemies.'

As, then, the establishment of the kingdom signifies not the constituting of the substance, but the advancement into dignity, and he who is bidden to rule does not command that which is not to come into being, but gives to that which is the rule over the disobedient—so also blessed Peter, in saying that he was made Christ, that is, King of all, added the word 'him,' that he might distinguish the argument from the substance and from the things contemplated about it.

For he made the things said of him who was that which he is.

If, then, it were reverent to say, concerning the surpassing nature, that something comes to be by progress—as, say, a king from a private man, and one exalted from one lowly, and a lord from a slave—it would perhaps have been fitting to fit Peter's utterance also to the divine substance of the Only-begotten;

but since the divine—whatever it is ever believed to be—is always in the same state, higher than all addition and incapable of diminution, there is every necessity to refer the argument to the human.

For the God-Word, whatever he was in the beginning, that also he is now and abides forever: ever King, ever Lord, ever the Most High and God, having become none of these by progress, but being all things—in the power of his nature—that he is even said to be;

but he who from man was exalted through the assumption toward the divine, being one thing and becoming another, is properly and truly said to have been made Christ and Lord.

For from a slave he made him Lord, and from one subject a King, and from one obedient a Christ, and he highly exalted the lowly, and to him who has the human name he granted the name that is above every name.

And thus came about that ineffable mingling and conjunction, the human littleness being commingled with the divine greatness.

Wherefore also the great and God-befitting of the names have been properly fitted to the human, and conversely the Godhead is named through the human.

For the same one both has the name that is above every name, and in the human name that is according to Jesus is worshipped by all creation.

'For in the name,' it says, 'of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.'

But let these things suffice to this extent.

But since he says that the word 'Lord' is predicated of the substance of the Only-begotten, not of the dignity, and calls the Apostle to witness for these things, saying to the Corinthians, 'Now the Lord is the Spirit,' it would be timely not to overlook this error of his either as uncorrected.

He determines that the word 'Lord' is indicative of substance, and to demonstrate this supposition he adduces the aforementioned saying.

Let us therefore see whether this has anything in common with the matter at hand.

'The Lord,' he says, 'is the Spirit.'

But he who expounds the Scripture according to his own fancy calls lordship 'substance,' and by what has been said supposes that his argument is brought to a proof.

But if Paul had said, 'The Lord is substance,' then we too would have concurred with what was stated;

but since [he wrote] 'Lord,' while Eunomius says that lordship is substance, I do not know whence his argument derives its force, unless perhaps he would again claim that the word 'Spirit' too is set down in Scripture in place of 'substance.'

Let us therefore examine whether anywhere the Apostle, in using the word 'Spirit,' has by that term indicated substance.

'The Spirit itself,' he says, 'bears witness with our spirit'; and, 'No one knows the things of a man save the spirit which is in him'; and, 'The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life'; and, 'If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live'; and, 'If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.' And who could enumerate the Apostle's utterances on this matter, in which nowhere do we find substance signified by this word?

For he who says, 'The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit,' indicates nothing other than the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in the mind of the faithful;

for in many places of his own writings he names the mind 'spirit'; and when it has received fellowship in the Spirit, the dignity of adoption comes to those who have received it.

And as for 'No one knows the things of a man save the spirit which is in him'—if 'man' too refers to substance, and 'spirit' likewise, then from what has been said man is constructed as being two substances.

And he who says that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life—I do not know how he sets substance in contrast to the letter.

Or again, how does this man suppose that Paul, when he says that we must put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, brings the meaning of 'Spirit' round to substance? And to 'live by the Spirit' and to 'walk by the Spirit'—this would be utterly beyond all sense, if the meaning of 'Spirit' were referred to substance.

For by what else, and not by the substance of living, do all of us who are among the living partake of life? Then does the Apostle lay down for us this counsel—to live by substance—as though he were saying that you partake of life through yourselves and not through others? If therefore this notion can nowhere properly be adopted, how then does he here again, imitating the interpreters of dreams, order that 'Spirit' be taken in place of 'substance,' so that he may syllogistically conclude that the word 'Lord' is composed as denoting substance? For if the Spirit is substance, and the Lord is the Spirit, the Lord is by all means found to be substance.

Oh, how irresistible is the force of the argument!

How is one to escape and loose this inextricable constraint of his demonstrations? 'The Lord,' he says, 'is spoken of as denoting substance.' By establishing this how? Because the Apostle says, 'The Lord is the Spirit.'

What then has this to do with substance? Why, by insisting that 'Spirit' be set down in place of 'substance.'

These are the arts of demonstrative methods, these the triumphs of Aristotelian technique! On this account we, according to your account, are pitiable—we who are uninitiated in this wisdom—while you are altogether to be counted blessed, who by such a method track down the truth.