Greek original · 111 verses · some words can be tapped for a gloss · long chapter, split into parts; this part covers 1:5605–1:5715 (6569 verses in all)
For this reason we say that the term 'unbegotten' has been applied by us to the true and first Father, the cause of all, and that no harm arises in the signification of the underlying subject if we should recognize the same thing by means of another term. For instead of saying 'unbegotten' it is possible to call him 'first cause,' or 'Father of the Only-begotten,' or 'him who subsists from no cause,' and many such expressions as bear upon the same meaning.
So that even by the very words with which he brings his accusation he confirms our doctrines, namely that we have not learned any name signifying the divine nature.
But we have been taught that it exists; while as for the force of such an appellation as would comprehend the ineffable and boundless nature, we say either that it does not exist at all, or that it is altogether unknown to us.
Therefore, let him set aside his customary mythologizing and point out the appellations that signify essences, and let him, by the diversity of the names, divide up the underlying subject as well.
But so long as the word of Scripture speaks truly, that Abraham and Moses did not attain to the knowledge of the Name, and that no one has ever seen God, and that no man has seen him nor can see him, and that the light around him is unapproachable and there is no limit to his majesty—so long as these things are spoken among us and believed, every discourse that professes any comprehension and interpretation of the boundless nature through the signification of names is like a man who supposes that he encompasses the whole sea within the hollow of his own hand.
But we say these things not as denying that the Father is unbegottenly, nor as refusing to grant that the Only-begotten God is begotten; rather, the one has been begotten and the other has not been begotten.
For when we say that this one either has been begotten or has not been begotten, we imprint by these words a twofold conception: by the demonstrative part of the statement looking to the underlying subject, and by the 'has been begotten or has not been begotten' being taught that which is contemplated in addition to the underlying subject—so that we conceive one thing concerning that which is, and another concerning that which is contemplated together with that which is.
But indeed, with every name that is said concerning the divine nature the word 'is' is altogether understood together with it—for example, 'just,' 'incorruptible,' 'immortal,' and 'unbegotten,' and whatever else is said.
And even if this word does not happen to accompany the utterance, still the understanding, both of the speaker and of the hearer, altogether joins the name to the 'is,' so that if this were not added, the appellation would fall upon emptiness.
And since the 'is' is understood together with each of the names, the things spoken will altogether prevail as being contemplated concerning that which is.
Just, then, as when we say that he is a judge, by the 'judging' we conceived a certain activity concerning him, but by the 'is' we directed our mind to the underlying subject, being clearly taught by these that we should not regard the account of being as the same as the activity—so also from saying that he is begotten or unbegotten we divide our understanding into a twofold apprehension: by the 'is' conceiving the underlying subject, and by the 'begotten' or 'unbegotten' grasping that which belongs to the underlying subject.
Let him, then, who would uncover the nature of that which is, not go through the things that pertain to that which is, but reveal it itself to us by means of the words in which he states the nature.
Whoever, then, professing to render the account of this One who is good and who is unbegotten, in respect of what he is, would be vain if he speaks of the things contemplated in addition but keeps silence about the essence itself which he undertook to interpret by his discourse.
For to be unbegottenly is one of the things contemplated in addition to that which is; and the account of 'being' is one thing, and the account of 'how it is' is another.
For it seems to me fitting that those who run this armed course against the enemies of the truth should arm themselves against those who are in some measure fortified by the plausibility of falsehood, but should not defile their discourse with the dead and putrid notions.
For as for the notion that all things which are united to the account of essence must altogether be in bodies and be yoked to corruption (for this is what he says in this portion), I shall willingly pass over as a corpse-like stench, since I think that everyone at least who has understanding is able readily to perceive the dead and disintegrated character of the argument.
Is the underlying subject in them alienated from bodily corruption? So that it is clear even to infants that bodies are corrupted and dissolved not because they are of one essence with one another, but because they have received a composite nature.
Namely, that if anything is of one essence, this is also altogether corruptible—as is demonstrated in the case of souls, whose essence is one and yet corruption does not attach to them by the community of essence.
For it is not, as Eunomius wishes, the case that the terms enumerated by Paul concerning the supramundane powers signify certain natures differing from one another; rather, the signification of the appellations clearly shows that it is not differences of natures, but the various properties of the activities of the heavenly host, that the word sets forth.
For to rule, and to exercise authority, and to be lord, and to be someone's throne—all these no reasonable man would refer to differences of essences, since the activity is plainly signified by each of the names.
So that whoever says that differences of natures are signified in the names enumerated by Paul deceives his own mind, as the Apostle says, understanding neither what he says nor concerning what he confidently affirms, since the signification of the names clearly shows that the Apostle knows differences of certain dignities among the intelligent powers, and does not by means of the names indicate diversities of essences.
But I, since the things that were professed to have force have been shown by the argument to be so rotten and unsubstantial, think it right to keep silence concerning the rest, seeing that in the refutations of the strong points the others too have been refuted along with them in respect of their force.
Just as happens in wars: when the more powerful of the enemy has fallen, the remnant of the army is no longer of any account to those who have overcome the mighty one.
For the passage of the Only-begotten from non-being into being—this indeed being the shuddersome and godless doctrine of Eunomius, more to be shunned than all impiety—he now, by the sequence of his discourse, sets up.
And since it is ready on the tongue of all who have been bewitched by this deceit, for the establishing of the doctrine that the One who made us and all creation out of things that are not is himself from non-being, to say 'if he was, he has not been begotten, and if he has been begotten, he was not'—and the deceit has by these means much support, since the more faint-hearted are hemmed in by this superficial plausibility and are led toward assent to the blasphemy—it is necessary not to pass by the root of the bitterness of the doctrine, lest, as the Apostle says, springing up it should trouble us.
And first I say that he must consider the argument by itself, apart from the contest with his opponents, and then thus proceed to the examination and refutation of what has been set forth.
The word of Holy Scripture indicates one mark of the true Godhead, which Moses was taught through the voice from above, having heard him who said, 'I am He who is.'
Therefore we think we ought to believe that this alone is truly divine which is apprehended in being according to that which is eternal and boundless, and everything contemplated concerning it is ever in the same manner, neither coming to be added nor coming to be taken away.
So that if anyone should say concerning God that formerly he was but now he is not, or that now he is but formerly he was not, we judge each of these statements to be equally godless.
And it in no way mitigates the impious supposition concerning the Divine whether non-existence is babbled about God as belonging to the first or to the last.
For this reason we define that the establishment of the notion that the One who truly is at some time was not is a denial and repudiation of the true Godhead.
Hearing these and such things from the God-inspired men, we leave everything that is not from eternity, as recent and foreign to the true Godhead, to be worshipped by the idolaters.
For that which now is but formerly was not is altogether recent and not eternal; and Moses names the looking to some one of the recent things the worship of demons, saying, 'They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods whom their fathers knew not; new and recent ones have come.'
If, then, everything recent as an object of veneration is worship of demons and alienated from the true Godhead, and that which now is but was not always is recent and not eternal, then necessarily, looking to that which is, we count among the servants of idols those who contemplate the non-being together with that which is and say that at some time he was not.
For indeed the great John, proclaiming the Only-begotten God in his own preaching, in every way secures his own discourse, that the supposition of non-being might find no entrance against that which is.
For he says that in the beginning he was, and he was with God, and he was God, and he was light, and life and truth and all good things always were, and none of the good things ever at any time was not—he who is the fullness of all good things and is in the bosom of the Father.
These things, then, being so, we define that the whole construction, by means of sophisms, concerning the truly existent One at some time not being, is nothing else than a transgression of Christianity and a turning aside into idolatry.
But since it is confessed even by the enemies of the truth that the Only-begotten God is Son and abides forever, this we say: that being in the Father he is in him not in one respect only, but according to all things whatsoever the Father is conceived to be, through all he is in him.
As, then, being in the incorruptibility of the Father he is incorruptible, and in the good he is good, and in the powerful he is powerful, and being in each of the things conceived in the Father as belonging to the better he is that very thing, so also in the eternity he is altogether eternal.
Therefore he who has all that the Father has and is contemplated in all the glory of the Father, just as being in the endlessness of the Father he has no end of life, so also being in the beginninglessness of the Father he has no beginning of days, as the Apostle says; but he both is from the Father and is beheld in the eternity of the Father, and in this manner especially the utter unvaryingness of the image with respect to him whose image it is is contemplated, and the word is found true in these matters which said, 'He who has seen me has seen the Father.'
But indeed, that which was said by the Apostle would in this way especially be well and fittingly understood: that the Son is the effulgence of the glory and the impress of the substance.
For to those who are unable to lead their reasoning up to the height of the knowledge of God through the contemplation of intelligible things, the Apostle produces in the hearers a certain image of the truth from the things that appear to sense-perception.
For as the body of the sun is characterized by the whole circle that surrounds it, and he who has seen the circle has, through what appears, inferred the substance of the whole underlying depth—so he said that in the greatness of the power of the Son the majesty of the Father is characterized, in order that, in the measure that this is known, so much the other too may be believed to be.
And again, as from the whole solar disc the radiance of light shines forth (for it is not that one part shines while another part of the disc is unlit), so the whole glory, which is the Father, is illumined on every side by the effulgence from itself, that is, by the true light.
And as the ray is from the sun (for it would not be a ray if there were no sun), yet the sun is never conceived by itself apart from the ray that shines forth from it—so the Apostle, delivering the conjunction and the eternity of the existence of the Only-begotten from the Father, named the Son 'effulgence of glory.'
Now that these things have been thus distinguished by us, no one would any longer doubt how the Only-begotten is both believed to be from the Father and to exist eternally, even if, according to the ready notion, the statement seems not to accord with the statement—the one saying that he is from the Father with that which witnesses to him the eternal.
But if it is necessary to confirm the statement also by other means, it would be possible to conceive the doctrine concerning this through certain of the things known to us according to sense-perception.
And let no one carp at the argument for not being able to find among existing things such an image of the thing sought as would suffice in every respect, by some analogy and likeness, for the representation of the matter set before us.
For we wish, in dealing with those who say that the Father first deliberated and only then came to be a Father, and who by this reasoning construct the notion that the Son is of later origin, to persuade them, through such examples as may be possible for us, and to lead their understanding toward what is godly.
For neither does this immediate conjunction squeeze out the Father's willing—as though the Father possessed the Son by some necessity of nature, apart from choice—nor does the willing set the Son at a distance from the Father, as though it fell in between them like some interval; so that we neither cast the Father's willing concerning the Son out of the doctrine (as though that willing were cramped within the conjunction of the Son's unity with the Father), nor yet dissolve the intervalless conjunction, when the willing is contemplated within the begetting.
It is peculiar to us, and often the case, that having a thing and willing it are not present at the same moment; rather, now we will to have something we do not have, and afterward we obtain what we willed to obtain.
But in the case of the simple and all-powerful nature, all things are conceived together and at the same instant—both the willing of the good and the possessing of the very thing that was willed.
For always is the good and eternal will contemplated in the everlasting nature as active, essential, and subsistent, neither coming to be from some private beginning, nor able to be conceived apart from that which is willed.
For it is not admissible that with God either the good will should not exist, or that what is willed should not coexist with the willing—since there is no cause that would make what befits the Father not always to be [nor any] that would hinder Him from possessing what is willed.
Since therefore the Only-begotten God is good by nature—or rather is beyond every good—and the good is not unwilled by the Father, it is plainly demonstrated by these considerations that the Son's conjunction with the Father is immediate, and that the will which is present throughout in the good nature is neither thrust out nor shut out by the intervalless conjunction.
Just as if someone (I speak by way of hypothesis) were to grant the flame some power of choice, it would clearly be the case that, at the very moment of its existence, the flame would will of itself to flash forth its brightness; and having willed, it would in no way lack the power, since the natural power would bring the will regarding the brightness to completion at the very instant the flame took shape—so that, if this be granted, that the flame moves by choice, the concurrence of all is beyond dispute to be conceived at the same instant: the kindling of the fire, and the will regarding the brightness, and the brightness itself, with nothing of the deliberate motion hindering the swift subsistence of the brightness—so too, according to the example we have given, if you also confess that the good will belongs to the Father, you will not, through the Father's will, set the Son at a distance.
For it is not reasonable that the will for Him to exist should be a hindrance to His at once coming to be; rather, just as in the eye both seeing and willing to see—the one being an activity of nature, the other an impulse of choice—yet the movement of choice introduces no delay into the very activity of seeing (for each of these is contemplated separately and in itself, neither becoming any hindrance to the being of the other, but the two are somehow together with one another, the natural activity accompanying the choice and the choice again not falling short of the motion that is according to nature).
As then in the eye perception is congenital, and the willing to see introduced no postponement to the very seeing, but the sight both wills to belong to it and is what it wills—so too, in the case of the ineffable nature that surpasses all conception, the understanding of all things arises in us together and at the same instant: of the Father's eternal existence, of the will concerning the Son, and of the Son Himself, who, as John says, was 'in the beginning' and is not conceived as coming after the beginning.
And since the Beginning indicates eternity, John rightly joins the Word to the Beginning, saying that the Word is in it—establishing this, I think, so that the Beginning may not first arise alone by itself in the hearer, but that, before it be impressed upon the understanding, the Word who is in it may be apprehended together with the Beginning, entering in with it into the hearer's conception and coming to be in his hearing together with the Beginning.
Now that the doctrine has thus been clarified by us, it would be timely also to set forth the opposing argument and to examine it, comparing it side by side against our own conceptions.
'For since,' he says, 'there are two things stated by us—that before its own begetting the essence of the Only-begotten did not exist, and that, having been begotten, it is before all things—neither of these statements is convicted of falsehood.'
He dared to say that there was a time above the highest begetting and constitution, though the Father's nature and the judgment of the sober-minded resist it.
For what sober person would accept that one who is a Son and begotten should be prior to the highest begetting—as though He who exists without begetting had no need of begetting in order to be what He is?
If then he speaks truly in saying that our teacher contended nothing against the objections, all those who have conversed with that man's writings would know it.
But as for me (for I reckon that to refute the calumny concerning these matters is but a small demonstration of his malice), I shall leave aside the task of showing that this portion was not overlooked by the teacher without examination, and shall, as far as possible, turn my discourse to the examination of what has been set forth.
He says that in his own treatise he stated two things: one, that before its own begetting the essence of the Only-begotten did not exist; the other, that, having been begotten, it is before all things.
But that no novel essence, outside of that which is contemplated in the Father Himself, was begotten from the Father, I think has been sufficiently demonstrated through what we have already said; nor is there any need for us, as though the argument were being brought forward by us for the first time, to grapple with such a blasphemy. Rather, this alone is what the discourse must earnestly address: his godless and shuddersome utterance, I mean, which openly declared concerning the Word of God that 'He was not.'
But since the discourse has already dealt moderately with this blasphemy in what was said before, it would perhaps be superfluous again, by means of similar considerations, to establish what has already been demonstrated.
For it was for this very reason that those things were said beforehand by us: that, once the godly conception has been imprinted beforehand upon the readers, the blasphemy of our adversaries—who make the 'was not' older than the 'was' in the case of the Only-begotten God—might become the more manifest.
But since the account of things that subsist from a cause is diverse, this, I think, is fitting to be made clear in the discourse by means of some methodical division.
For some are from matter and art—as the constructions of buildings and the other works that come to be through the appropriate matter, over which some art presides, bringing what was proposed to completion toward the particular aim of the things made; and others are from matter and nature.
For nature builds the generations of animals one from another through the material substrate in bodies, effecting its own work; while others are from a material effluence, in which cases both the source remains as it is and that which flows from it is conceived as existing on its own—as with the sun and its ray, or with the lamp and its brightness, or with aromatics and perfumes and the quality that is given off from them.
For these, remaining undiminished in themselves, immediately have accompanying each of them the natural property that is given off from them—as the sun has the ray, the lamp the brightness, and the aromatics the fragrance that is engendered from them in the air.
There is also another kind of generation besides these, whose cause is immaterial and incorporeal, but whose generation is perceptible and comes through a body: I mean the word begotten from the mind.
For all those marvels wrought by nature—which changes the bodies of certain animals into a kind of different species, or from some alteration of moist things, or from the corruption of seeds, or from the rotting of wood, fashions certain animals, or from the compacting of fire transforms the cold vapor from firebrands, caught in the depths, into the generation of an animal which they call the salamander—even if this seems to be outside the distinctions laid down, it is nonetheless among the things mentioned.
Since, then, these modes of generation are manifest to men, the loving-kindness of the Holy Spirit's dispensation, in handing down to us the divine mysteries, effects the teaching of things beyond speech through things within our capacity—as it does in all other cases too, when it delineates the Divine in bodily terms, describing about God an eye and eyelids and an ear and fingers and a hand and a right hand and an arm and feet and sandals and such things, none of which is grasped in the divine nature according to the surface meaning; but, raising the teaching to what is easily discernible by us, it defines by means of the terms worn common in human usage those realities that are beyond all signification, since for each of the things said about God we are analogically led up to some loftier notion.
In this way, then, it takes up the many kinds of generation [from the God-breathed teaching] for the setting-forth of the ineffable subsistence of the Only-begotten, taking from each only so much as is reverent to be received for our conceptions concerning God.
For just as the mention of fingers in the case of God, and of the hand and the arm, does not sketch out for the account the structure of the limb from bones, sinews, flesh, and ligaments, but signifies by such a name His practical and effective power, and by each of the others indicates the corresponding things conceived about God, not admitting along with them the bodily connotations of the names—so too it does indeed speak of these kinds of generation in reference to the divine nature, yet does not speak in the way that our usage is accustomed to conceive.
For when it speaks of the constructive power, it names such an activity 'generation,' because the account must descend to the lowliness of our capacity; yet it does not indicate all those things which among us are contemplated together with constructive coming-to-be—not place, not time, not the provision of matter, not the cooperation of tools, not the toil that attends the things made—but, leaving these to us, in a magnificent and lofty manner it attributes to God the coming-to-be of existing things, where it says, 'He spoke, and they came to be; He commanded, and they were created.'
Again, when it interprets the ineffable and above-reason subsistence of the Only-begotten from the Father, because human poverty cannot contain teachings that are beyond speech and thought, there too it employs our own terms and names Him 'Son'—the very name which our usage assigns to those born from matter and nature.
But just as the account, in speaking of the coming-to-be of creation in reference to God, did not add that it comes to be through some matter—declaring the essence, matter, place, time, and all such things to be the power of His will—so here too, in saying 'Son,' it left aside all the other things which human nature observes about the lower begetting: I mean the passions and dispositions and the cooperation of time and the need of place, and, before all, matter—apart from all of which the lower begetting from nature does not come to be.
But since no such material and dimensional notion is taken up along with the signification of 'Son,' nature alone remained; and for this reason, by the term 'Son,' the proper and genuine character of the Only-begotten's manifestation from the Father is interpreted.