Against Eunomius 1 part 50/56

And since such a kind of generation was not sufficient to produce in us an adequate representation concerning the ineffable existence of the Only-begotten, it takes up along with it yet another kind of generation for the signifying of the theology of the Son—that from material effluence—and speaks of 'the effulgence of glory' and 'the odor of ointment' and 'the vapor of God,' which, in the treatment set forth by us above, our usage calls a material effluence.

Just as neither did the making of creation, nor the signification of 'Son,' admit along with them time or matter or place or passion, so here too, having cleansed away every material notion from the signification of 'effulgence' and the rest of those mentioned, the account takes up only the God-befitting element of such a kind of generation and indicates that He is conceived as being from Him and with Him, through the connotation belonging to this very expression.

For neither does the vapor present its diffusion into the air out of the underlying matter, nor does the odor present the transference into the air that comes from the quality of the ointment, nor does the effulgence present the effluence from the solar body through the rays; but this alone, out of all, is disclosed, as has been said, through such a mode of generation—that He is from Him and is conceived as being with Him, no interval mediating between the Father and Him who is from Him.

And since, out of greater loving-kindness, the grace of the Holy Spirit dispensed that the divine conceptions concerning the Only-begotten should arise in us from many quarters, it added also the remaining kind contemplated in generation—that, I mean, from the mind and the word.

But the lofty John employs even greater forethought, lest the hearer should ever fall, through faintness and small-mindedness, to the common notion of a word—so that the Son might be reckoned merely an utterance of the Father.

For this reason he prepares us, by his first proclamation, to behold the Word in essence—and in an essence not estranged and torn away from that whence He is, but in that very first and blessed nature.

For this is what he teaches, saying that 'In the beginning was the Word,' and 'with God,' and 'God'—[and] that He is all things that the Beginning is.

For thus he expounds, doing theology concerning the eternity of the Only-begotten.

Since, then, these modes of generation—that is, of things subsisting from a cause—are known in our usage, and are also taken up by Holy Scripture for the teaching of things transcendent, in such a way that, as is fitting, each of them is transferred to the setting-forth of the divine conceptions, let the reader of this discourse judge a righteous judgment, whether anything of what is adduced by the heresy has any strength against the truth.

But I shall again set forth, in his very words, the statement of the adversary, which runs thus.

'There are two things,' he says, '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.'

What kind of generation does the dogmatist propose to us? Is it that which it befits us to conceive and speak of in the case of God? And who is so godless as to conceive of God's not-being as prior to God? But it is plain that, looking to this material generation of the lower nature, he makes it the teacher of his notion concerning the Only-begotten God; and since an ox or an ass or a camel does not exist before its own begetting, he wishes to say this also of the Only-begotten which the sequence of the lower nature gives to be observed in the case of animals—this corporeal theologian not even conceiving this: that 'Only-begotten,' said of God, by the very word signifies that which is uncommunicated with and peculiar in relation to all generation.

For how could this begetting be 'only-begotten,' if it had community, in connotation and identity, with another begetting? For that He alone is conceived in a special manner, which cannot be discerned in any other begetting, is properly and naturally interpreted by the appellation of 'Only-begotten.'

So that if anything of the lower begetting were contemplated in Him also, He would no longer be 'only-begotten,' being made to share, in certain properties of begetting, with the rest of the things begotten.

For if the same things be said of Him also which are said of the others that come into being through begetting, the account will transform the signification of 'Only-begotten' into a kind of fraternal relation.

Therefore, if the signification of 'Only-begotten' indicates that which is unmixed and uncommunicated with the rest of the things that come to be, we shall not accept that any of the things seen in connection with the lower begetting be conceived also in the case of the Son's subsistence from the Father.

It belongs to all things that subsist through begetting: the not-being before the begetting.

This, then, is alien to the peculiar property of the Only-begotten—He to whom the appellation of 'Only-begotten' bears witness that nothing of the mode of common begetting [of the erroneous kind] belongs.

Let then this materialist, this friend of sense-perception, be persuaded, through the other kind of generation, to correct the erroneousness of his notions.

For what will you say, when you hear 'the effulgence of glory' and 'the odor of ointment'—that the effulgence did not exist before its own begetting? But when you say this, you will altogether grant neither that the glory exists, nor the ointment.

For it is not possible either to reckon the glory as ever having been blind and lightless in itself, or the ointment as barren of its sweet fragrance.

So that if the effulgence did not exist, neither did the glory exist at all; and, the odor not existing, it was jointly demonstrated that the ointment too does not exist.

But if anyone is afraid of these examples taken from Scripture, as not accurately presenting the majesty of the Only-begotten, because the vapor is not the same in essence with the underlying thing—the ointment—nor the ray with the sun, let the true Word correct the fear: He who is in the beginning and is all things that the beginning is and pre-exists the whole, when John thus cried aloud in his proclamation that 'the Word was also with God, and the Word was God.'

If then the Father is God, and the Son also is God, what ambiguity is any longer left for the accurate theology of the Only-begotten—when by the signification of 'Son' the natural kinship is recognized; by 'effulgence,' the conjunction and intervallessness; by the appellation of 'God,' applied equally to Father and Son, the equality of honor through all; while the 'impress,' contemplated upon the whole subsistence of the Father, signifies the undiminished fullness of His proper magnitude; and 'the form of God' declares the identity through all, by displaying in itself all those things by which the Godhead is characterized?

Once more, then, let us set forth the argument of Eunomius.

'He was not,' he says, 'before His own begetting.'

Who is this of whom he says that He was not? Let him name the divine titles by which, according to Eunomius, the One who once was not is called.

He will therefore say: Light, and blessedness, and Life, and incorruption, and righteousness, and sanctification, and power, and truth, and the like.

He, then, who says that He was not before His begetting, is openly proclaiming this: that there was no truth when that One was not, there was no life, there was no light, there was no power, there was no incorruption, nor any other of those things conceived as belonging to the higher order; and — what is yet more irrational than these, and more grievous unto impiety — there was no radiance, there was no express image.

For in saying that the radiance was not, he altogether establishes as well that the very power which sheds the radiance was not — just as it is in the illustration drawn from a lamp.

For he who speaks of the beam of the lamp thereby indicates also that the lamp is shining; and he who says that the beam is not signifies at the same time the extinguishing of that which gives light.

So that when the Son is said not to be, the non-existence of the Father also is established, by all necessity, through the logical consequence of these arguments.

For if, according to the apostolic testimony, the one is bound together with the other — namely, the radiance of the glory, and the express image of the substance, and the wisdom of God — then he who says that one of these bound-together realities is not, by the removal of the one has altogether removed the other that remains as well.

So that, the radiance not existing, it is confessed that the nature which sheds the radiance does not exist either; and the express image not subsisting, that the substance which is expressed does not exist either; and there being no wisdom and power of God, it must altogether be confessed that neither does that One exist who, apart from wisdom and power, cannot be conceived of in Himself.

If, then, the only-begotten God was not before He came to be, as Eunomius says, and Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God and the express image and the radiance, then in no way did the Father exist either — the Father whose power and wisdom and express image and radiance the Son is.

In the case both of those who confess them together and of those who deny them, the two appear together with one another; and by the removal of the one, that which is bound with it is likewise made to vanish.

Since, therefore, it is established by them that the Son — who is the radiance of the glory — was not before He came to be, and the logical sequence removes, together with the non-existence of the radiance, also the eternity of the glory (and the Father is the glory, from whom the only-begotten Light shone forth), let these men who are superfluously wise perceive that they have shown themselves to be allies of the Epicurean doctrines, championing atheism under the guise of Christianity.

Since, then, by logical consequence a twofold absurdity has appeared — either to say that God does not exist at all, or that He does not exist without beginning — let them choose what seems best from these apparent options: either to be called godless, or to say that life is no longer without beginning for the Father.

But surely it is likely that they shun being reckoned godless.

It remains, therefore, that they are establishing that God is not eternal.

But if the logical sequence of what has been demonstrated forces this conclusion, where then are the varied and nimble inversions of terms? Where is that irresistible necessity of syllogisms which, through the distinction of the unbegotten over against the begotten, dins in old wives' ears? — But so much for these things.

It would be well, too, not to leave the next point unexamined.

But let us pass over in silence the jests interspersed in between, in which this clever rhetorician preens himself boyishly — whether in jest or in earnest in his abuse against us — as though by this means he would prove himself the better in argument.

For surely no one will compel us either to squint our eyes along with those who are cross-eyed, or, along with those deranged by a demonic malady, to contort ourselves and leap about and collapse to the ground with our bodies.

But those we shall pity; we ourselves, however, shall not depart from our settled state.

He says, then, having turned the argument in the matter against our teacher — as though making the contest face to face — that 'You will be caught by your own wings.'

For our teacher had said that the good is always present with the God who is over all, and that it is good to be the Father of such a Son.

Therefore the good is never absent from Him, nor did the Father ever will to be without a Son; and having so willed, He was not powerless; and being able and willing, in accordance with His purpose He has, and always has, the Son, because He always wills the good — for it is to this that the thought of what was said by our father looks. Having first torn these things to pieces, Eunomius brings forward, from the wisdom that is from without, some such saying as this, aimed at overthrowing what has been said, and he declares:

'What will become of you,' says one of those practiced in such arguments, 'if someone says: if to create is good and befitting God, how was the good and befitting not present with Him without beginning, seeing that God is without beginning? — and this when neither ignorance hindered nor weakness impeded, nor age was lacking for creating' — and all the wretched stuff that you have heaped together and poured out upon yourself.

For surely it is not lawful to say of God.

If, then, it had been possible for the teacher himself to answer the question that was put, he would have shown Eunomius who it is that would have arisen, in the very way this man asked — by his God-taught tongue both unveiling the divine mystery and scourging with refutations the champions of deceit, so that it might become plain to all how great the interval is between a minister of the mysteries of Christ and a mimic of buffooneries, or a maker of novel and monstrous doctrines.

But since the one, as the apostle says, though dead yet speaks to God, while the other puts forth such things as though there were none to gainsay him — even if our answer be not equal, as measured against the utterance of the great Basil — nevertheless we shall say these things with boldness to the questioner: that a testimony to our speaking the truth, in those matters wherein we refute the doctrine of impiety, is furnished by your own argument, the one brought forward for the overthrow of our words.

For we lay no other so great a charge against you than this: that you suppose the Master of the creation to differ in nothing from the common lot of the creation; and what is put forward by you is a confirmation of the very things whereof we accuse you.

For the absurdity has been convicted through your own words, and it has become manifest to all both that we set the argument straight in truth, and that your notion concerning the only-begotten God is such as that which you hold concerning the rest of created things.

About what was the dispute? Was it not about the only-begotten Son of God, the Maker of all creation, whether He always was, or came to be with the Father later? What, then, does the teacher's utterance say concerning this? That it is not pious not to believe that the good by nature is always in God.

For no cause can be seen by reason of which it is likely that the good should not be present with the Good — neither by any deficiency of power nor by any feebleness of will.

What does the one who fights against these statements say to this? That if you grant that God the Word is believed to be from eternity, you will grant the like also concerning the things that have been made.

Oh, how well he knows how to distinguish in argument the nature of things made and the divine majesty! How well he understands concerning each what is fitting — how much it is pious to think concerning God, and how much concerning the creation!

'If the Maker,' he says, 'takes His beginning from the time of His work of creation—'

For by nothing else is it possible to mark the beginning of the things that have come to be, than by the fact that time, in its own extension, defines the beginnings and ends for the things that come to be.

For this reason he says that the Maker of times too must begin His being from a like beginning.

But the creation has the ages as its beginning; yet what beginning will you conceive for the Maker of the ages? For if one should name the beginning spoken of in the Gospel, it is the Father who is there signified, together with whom the confession of the Son also is jointly displayed; and it is not possible that He who is in the Father, as the Lord says, should begin His being in Him from any given mark of time.

But if anyone should name some other beginning besides that one, let him tell the name by which he marks such a beginning, seeing that nothing is apprehended prior to the constitution of the ages.

Such an argument, therefore, will in no way move us from our pious conception concerning the only-begotten God, even though the old women applaud it as a mighty problem.

For we abide by what has been known from the beginning, holding our argument firmly grounded upon the truth: that whatever the word of piety lays down to be said concerning the only-begotten God has no kinship with the creation, but is separated by a wide interval — the marks that distinguish the One who made all things, and those of His works.

If, then, in some other respects the Son had any fellowship with the creation, it would surely have been necessary to say that He differs not even in respect of the mode of existence.

But if the creation has no share in such things as we have learned concerning the Son, it is altogether necessary to say that in this respect too it has no fellowship with Him.

For neither was the creation in the beginning, nor was it with God, nor was it God; it was not life, not light, not resurrection, nor the rest of the names befitting God — such as truth, righteousness, sanctification, righteous Judge, Maker of all, existing before the ages, reigning unto the age and beyond the age and yet further; the creation is not the radiance of the glory, not the express image of the substance, not the image of goodness, not grace, not power, not truth, not salvation, not redemption, nor anything at all of such a kind spoken by the Scripture unto the glory of the only-begotten — none of these is either found in the creation or spoken of it, to pass over the loftier utterances: 'I am in the Father and the Father in Me,' and 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' and 'No one knoweth the Son save the Father.'

If, then, Scripture were able to bear witness that such and so great things belong to the creation, it might well have thought that what is observed concerning it should be fitted also to the notions concerning the only-begotten, the comparison being made from things of the same kind to that which is akin.

But if all such notions and names have their fellowship with the Father, and transcend any surmise concerning the creation, will not the wise and shrewd man sink down in shame — he who, through the things observed in the creation, plays the natural philosopher about the Lord of the creation, not yet understanding that the distinguishing marks of the divine nature are one set of things, and those of the creation another?

The created and the uncreated have their division: the one as cause of that which has come to be, the other as having come to be from thence.

Since, then, the created nature and the divine essence are divided, and have no intermixture according to their distinguishing properties, it is altogether necessary neither to conceive of each by means of the like, nor to seek the same distinguishing marks for things that stand apart according to the principle of their nature.

Since, then, the nature in the creation — as somewhere says the word of the all-virtuous Wisdom — displays in itself a beginning and an end and a middle of times, and is extended together with all the intervals of time, we take this property as a kind of distinguishing mark of the subject, in that we altogether behold some beginning of its constitution, and look toward the middle, and are extended in hope toward the end.

For we have learned that the heaven and the earth neither were from eternity nor shall be unto eternity; so that from this it is plain that the things that are took their start from some beginning, and will altogether come to some end.

But the divine nature, being bounded in no part, but on every side passing beyond all boundary in the infinite, is far removed from the marks found in the creation.

For that power which is without interval and without quantity and uncircumscribed, holding within itself the ages and all the creation that is in them, and on every side overpassing the infinity of the ages by the eternity of its own nature, either has no mark that indicates its nature, or something altogether different, and not that which the creation has.

Since, then, it is a property of the creation to have a beginning, that which is proper to the creation would be alien to the uncreated nature.

For if anyone should think fit to lay down, after the likeness of the creation, that the existence of the only-begotten too is apprehended as beginning from some beginning, he will of all necessity fit together with his argument concerning the Son the logical sequence of all the rest as well.

For when the beginning has been granted, it is not possible not to confess along with it that which follows.

For just as, if one should grant that someone is a man, he has attached to this confession all the properties of the nature — saying that he is a living being and rational, and whatever else is conceived concerning man — by the same reasoning, if we should perceive some one of the properties belonging to the creation as present in the divine essence, it will no longer rest with us not to fit the remaining catalogue of things observed in it to the undefiled nature.

For the beginning, forcibly and of necessity, will demand what follows after it in logical sequence.

For the beginning thus conceived is the beginning of the things that come after it, so that if those exist, this too exists; but if the things bound with it be removed, neither does that which precedes remain.

Since, then, Wisdom adds both a middle and an end to the beginning, if we should assume in the case of the nature of the only-begotten some beginning of His subsistence defined from a given mark of time — as the heresy dogmatizes — Wisdom will in no way permit us not to attach both the end and the middle to the beginning as well.

But if this should happen, our theologian will be found demonstrating the Divine to be mortal by his own attempts.

For if, according to the principle of Wisdom, the end necessarily follows upon the beginning, and the middle is contemplated together with the two extremes, then he who has granted the one to the Power has constructed the others along with it as well, defining measures and a limit of life for the boundless nature.

But if this is impious and absurd, it is worthy of equal or even greater accusation to grant a beginning to the argument that ends in impiety.

And the beginning of such an absurdity appeared to be the supposing that the life of the Son is circumscribed within some beginning.

So that it is one of two things: either they will, being compelled by what has been said, transfer themselves to the sound doctrine, and will contemplate the One who is from Him together with the eternity of the Father; or, if they be unwilling for this, they will on either side set a limit to the eternity of the Son, bringing the infinitude of His life, by beginning and by end, into non-existence.

The Godhead stands apart from the creation by its distinguishing properties.

For it is the property of the Godhead to be in need of no notion whatsoever that is contemplated under the aspect of the good; but the creation comes to be in the good by participation in that which is better — the creation which not only took its start of being, but is also, in ever being in the good, apprehended as being in a state of beginning through its increase toward the better.

Because it never stands still upon what has been attained, but everything that has been created becomes, through participation, a beginning of ascent toward the greater; and, according to Paul's utterance, it never ceases stretching forth to the things that are before and forgetting the things that are behind.

Since, then, the Godhead is Life-in-itself, and the only-begotten God is God and Life and Truth and every lofty and God-befitting notion, while the creation receives from thence the supply of good things, it would be plain from these considerations that, if the creation, by participating in life, is in the state of living, then, should it cease from participation, it will altogether cease from being in the state of living as well.

If, then, they dare to say these things also concerning the only-begotten God — whatever it is true to say concerning the creation — let them say this too along with all the rest: that, like the creation, He also takes His start of being, and continues in the state of living after the likeness of souls.

But if the one is Life-in-itself and has no need of having life within Himself as something introduced from without, while all the other things are not life, but come to be partakers of life, what necessity is there, through the things beheld in the creation, to strike out the eternity of the Son? For that which is ever the same according to its nature is incapable of receiving its opposite, and is unsusceptible of change into anything else.

But those whose nature is on the border between the two, in these the inclination sways toward either side, leaning by its own free power toward the things chosen according to its purpose.

If, then, true life is contemplated in the divine and transcendent nature, the falling away from it will assuredly, as is reasonable, terminate in its opposite.

The notion of life and of death has many senses, and is not understood in one and the same way.

For in the case of the flesh, the activity and movement of the bodily senses is called life, and conversely their quenching and dissolution is named death.

But in the case of the intellectual nature, kinship with the divine is the true life, and the falling away from this bears the name of death.

Wherefore the primal evil, the devil, is also called death and the inventor of death; nay more, he is said by the Apostle to have the power of death.

Since therefore, as has been said, the signification of death is understood from the Scriptures to be twofold, He who is truly unchangeable and unalterable alone possesses immortality, and dwells in light amid the gloom of evil, unapproachable and inaccessible.

But all things that partake of death, becoming far removed from immortality through their inclination toward the contrary; and should any thing flow away from participation in the good, it would, by reason of the mutability of its nature, receive fellowship with the worse—which is nothing other than death, bearing a certain analogy to bodily death.

For just as here the quenching of the natural activities is called death, so also in the intellectual essence the immobility toward the good is death and a departure from life.

So that what is understood concerning the incorporeal creation does not run counter to the argument which refutes the heretical absurdity.

For the death proper to the intellectual nature—that is, separation from God, which we call life—is not separated even from this nature by its own power.

For its passage from non-being makes manifest the mutability of its nature.

But that to which change is akin is, by the grace of Him who strengthens it, kept from participation in the contrary; it does not by the power of its own nature abide in the good.

And such a thing is not eternal.

If, then, he even speaks truly in saying that one ought not to reason about the divine essence and the created nature by the same terms, nor to circumscribe the being of the Son by any beginning—lest, this being granted, the other properties of creation should slip in along with it through the acknowledgment of the one—the absurdity is plainly convicted of him who, by what is said concerning creation, severs the Only-begotten God from the eternity of the Father.

The being from some beginning becomes a demonstration that the Son is not always in the Father—He who is Wisdom and Power and Light and Life, and all that is contemplated in the Father's bosom.

But he passes on to loftier arguments, and having exalted himself and swelled up with empty puffing, he undertakes to say something worthy of the majesty of God.

"For God," says he, "being the most excellent good of all, and the most mighty of all, and free from all necessity."

Well does the noble fellow, like some unballasted vessel driven of itself by the waves of deceit, bring his argument to anchor in the harbor of the truth.

God is the most excellent of all good things.

Assuredly he would not indict the great John on a charge of illegal writing—John, by whom the Only-begotten God is proclaimed in exalted preaching, He who both was with God and was God.

If, then, that man is a trustworthy herald of the Only-begotten's Godhead, and God is the most excellent good, then the Son is testified to be the most excellent good—by the very enemy of His glory.

And since such a term fits the Father also, the superlative force of the expression "most excellent" admits of no diminution or superiority arising from comparison.

These things having been taken by us from the testimony of the enemies for the demonstration of the Only-begotten's glory, we must add, as an ally to the sound argument, the words that follow next after his.

For he says that the most excellent good, God, inasmuch as neither is a nature hindering nor a cause compelling nor a need pressing upon Him, both begets and creates according to the pre-eminence of His own authority, having a will sufficient as power for the establishment of the things that come to be.

If, then, everything good exists according to His will, He determines not only that what has come to be is good, but also when it is good for it to come to be—if indeed it be a mark of weakness to make what one does not will.

Up to this point we must take up, for the establishment of pious doctrines, the argument of our opponents which is patched together out of filthy and counterfeit little phrases.

For He who, according to the pre-eminence of His own authority, has a will sufficient as power for the establishment of the things that come to be, He who created all things without any nature hindering or cause compelling, determines not only that what has come to be is good, but also when it is good for it to come to be.