Against Eunomius 1 part 53/56

But he constructs the argument that the One who truly is either does not exist at all or does not exist properly—which amounts to the same as not existing at all.

For he who does not properly exist does not exist at all.

For example, one who is imagined in a dream to be exerting himself in running is said to run according to that dreamed appearance;

but since it falsely counterfeits the semblance of true running, on this account the appearance is not running.

And even if it be so called by a misuse of language, it is named by a false and untrue appellation.

Therefore he who dares to say of the Only-begotten God that He either does not exist or does not properly exist, clearly cancels the faith in Him that belongs to the doctrine.

For who would still believe in one who does not exist? Or who would attach himself to that whose being has been declared void and without hypostasis by the enemies of the true Lord? And, so that our argument may not seem to be made through some calumny against our opponents, I shall set down the very wording of the impious men, which runs thus:

'He does not exist, nor properly exist,' he says—He who is in the bosom of Him who is, and who is in the beginning and is with God—'even if Basil, neglecting this distinction and addition, interchanges the appellation of "Him who is" contrary to the truth.'

What are you saying? He who is in the Father does not exist, and He who is in the beginning and He who is in the bosom—does He on this account not exist, because He is in the beginning and is in the Father and is beheld in the bosom of Him who is? And on this account does He not properly exist, because He is in Him who is? O what novel and paradoxical doctrines!

Now for the first time we have heard this empty utterance, that the Lord through whom are all things does not properly exist.

And this is not yet the dreadful thing; but there is something even more paradoxical than this: that he says He not only does not exist or does not properly exist, but is also to be contemplated in a composite and manifold nature;

'for He does not exist,' he says, 'nor is He simple.'

But to whom simplicity does not belong, to him is plainly attested manifoldness and composition.

How then is the same one both altogether non-existent and composite according to essence? For one of two things is necessary: either, attesting to Him absolute non-existence, not to call Him composite either; or, charging Him with composition, not to remove Him from being.

But in order that their blasphemy may be uttered in many forms and manifoldly, it leaps upon all godless notions: by comparison with 'Him who is' saying that He does not properly exist, and by relation to the simple saying that He has no share in simplicity.

'Neither existing, nor simply, nor properly existing.'

Which of those who have transgressed the Word and forsworn the faith ever lavished so much upon negative utterances concerning the Lord, and vied against the divine proclamation of John? For as often as that man attested the 'was' to the Word, so often did this man contentiously set the 'was not' against Him who is.

And he does battle with the holy mouth of our father, bringing forth these charges against him: that Basil neglects these distinctions, calling Him who is in the Father and in the beginning and in the bosom 'the One who is'—as though such an addition, that concerning the beginning and the bosom, cancelled out the existence of Him who is.

O what novel lessons the teachers of deceit teach, of what sort of doctrines they become the introducers to their hearers!

They teach that what is in something does not exist.

Therefore, since the heart and the brain are within you, Eunomius, according to your distinction neither of these exists.

For if the Only-begotten God does not properly exist for this reason, that He is in the bosom of the Father, then everything that is in something is wholly removed from being.

But surely the heart is in you and does not exist by itself.

Therefore according to your argument one must say either that it does not exist at all or that it does not properly exist.

But indeed the uninstructedness in what he has said and the blasphemy are so great and of such a kind that they are manifest even before our words to those at least who have understanding;

let us add to what has been said before.

If it is possible to say that only He properly exists to whom the word of Scripture attests being that is absolute and unconditioned, why do they, like water-carriers who, though it is in their power to drink, perish of thirst? And thus, having ready at hand the antidote to the blasphemy against the Son, he shut his eyes and ran past it, as though afraid of being saved, and he accuses Basil of doing wrong because, keeping silent about the qualifications, he expounded of the Only-begotten simply, by itself, the 'was.'

And yet it was possible for this man too to see what that man saw and what everyone who has eyes beholds.

This is what, as it seems to me, the lofty John, moved prophetically, so that the mouths of the enemies of Christ—who through these additions set aside the Lord's properly existing—might be stopped, spoke simply and without qualification: that God was the Word, and life was He, and light was He, not only being in the beginning and with God and in the bosom of the Father, so that through such a relation the Lord's properly existing should be done away with;

but by saying that He was God, by this unconditioned and absolute utterance he cuts short every circuit of those who in their reasonings run toward impiety; and, in addition to this, what is even more, he refutes the malice of his adversaries.

For if they make 'being in something' the sign of not properly existing, then they by all means agree that not even the Father properly exists, having learned in the Gospel that just as the Son is in the Father, so also the Father abides in the Son, according to the Lord's own word.

For it is the same thing to say that the Son is in the bosom of the Father and to say that the Father is in the Son.

Let us in passing examine this also.

When the Son did not exist, as they say, what did the bosom of the Father contain? For by all means they will either grant that it was full, or suppose it to be empty.

If, then, the bosom was full, the Son by all means was the fullness of the bosom;

but if they contemplate some emptiness in the bosom of the Father, they attest to Him nothing other than a perfection derived from increase, He being transferred from what is empty and lacking to what is full and complete.

For he who is at war with the true light cannot have his soul in the light.

For this reason, that which follows in sequence—the correction of this impiety—they did not perceive, being as it were smitten with blindness like the Sodomites.

But he also says that the essence of the Son is lorded over by the Father, saying thus in his phrase:

'For He who exists and lives on account of the Father does not appropriate this dignity to Himself, since the essence which lords over Him too draws to itself the notion of Him who is.'

If, then, these things seem good to any of the outside sages, let the Gospels not be troubled at all, nor the rest of the teaching of the God-inspired Scripture (for what fellowship has the Christian word with the wisdom that has been made foolish?);

but if he rests his case on the Scriptures, let him show forth such an utterance from the holy writings, and we will be silent.

I hear Paul crying aloud that there is 'One Lord, Jesus Christ.'

But Eunomius cries against Paul, naming Christ a slave.

For we recognize no other mark of slavery than being under another's hand and being lorded over.

The slave is by all means a slave;

but he who is a slave by nature cannot be a lord, even if he be so called by a misuse of the term.

And why do I need to bring the utterances of Paul as testimony to the lordship of the Lord? For the very Master of Paul says to His disciples that He is truly Lord, accepting the confession of those who name Him teacher and lord.

For He says: 'You call me Lord and teacher, and you say well;'

and this very same thing He also ordained by law to be said of the Father, saying: 'Call no one master upon the earth;

for one is your master, the Christ;

and call no one father upon the earth;

for one is your Father, who is in the heavens.'

From this Eunomius brings an indictment of slavery against the Lord, saying that He who holds the dominion over the whole is lorded over.

Is the choice of what should be done doubtful to us, or is the discernment of the more profitable course but a hair's breadth away? Shall I dishonour Paul's counsel, O Eunomius? Shall I deem the voice of truth less worthy of belief than your deceit? But 'If I had not come and spoken to them,' He says, 'they would not have had sin.'

Since, then, He Himself spoke to them, truly saying that He is Lord, not being so named falsely (for 'I am,' He says, 'not "I am named"'), what is one to do for whom, from His foreknowledge, the punishment is inescapable? But perhaps again against these things he will throw up his customary wisdom and will say that the same one both serves and is lord—being lorded over by the one who prevails, but lording over the rest.

For these clever things are bandied about at the crossroads by the lovers of deceit, who through human circumstances confirm their own vain suppositions about the Divine;

for since the encounters of this life furnish us with the examples of such matters—as, for instance, in a wealthier household one may see the more active and better-disposed of the fellow-slaves set in charge, having obtained by his master's command precedence over his equals in rank—they transfer this notion to the divine doctrines, so that the Only-begotten God, being subjected to the sovereignty of the one who is superior, is in no way hindered by the authority of the one who rules from His governance over the inferiors.

But we, having bidden farewell to such wisdom, will examine the argument concerning this according to our own measure of understanding.

Do they, then, confess that the Father is Lord by nature, or that He came to this by some kind of appointment? But I do not think that anyone who partakes even in the slightest of understanding would come to such madness as not to bear witness that lordship over all things belongs to God by nature.

For that which is simple in nature, and without parts, and uncompounded, whatever it happens to be, is that thing wholly and throughout; it does not become something other out of something else by any change, but abides forever in that which it is.

What, then, have they supposed concerning the Only-begotten as well? Do they confess His essence to be simple, or do they conceive some composition about it? If, then, they hold Him to be some manifold and multipartite thing, they will by no means concede to Him even the name of the Godhead, transferring the doctrine concerning Christ into material and corporeal notions.

But if they agree that He is simple, how is it possible to contemplate in the simplicity of the subject the concurrence of contraries? For just as the opposition of life and death to their contrary is without any middle term, so lordship is unmixed with servitude and estranged from it by their distinctive properties.

For no one, contemplating each of these in itself, could fit the same account to both.

And of those things whose account is not the same, the nature also is altogether different.

If, then, the Lord is simple according to His nature, how could there arise about the subject the duality of contraries, with servitude commingled with lordship? But if He is confessed as Lord according to the teaching of the saints, the simplicity of the subject bears witness that He has no share in the contrary.

But if they declare that He is a servant, then in vain do they bear witness to Him with the name of lordship.

For that which is simple in nature is not divided against the contraries of its properties.

But if they say that He is one thing and is called another—by nature a servant, but by name Lord—let them break forth boldly with such an utterance, and they will relieve us of our long labors of refutation.

For who is so at leisure amid vanities as to refute by reasonings things manifest and beyond doubt? For not even if someone should inform against himself the pollution of murder does any labor remain for his accusers to bring the bloodshed to conviction by any proofs.

So we too will no longer bring against our opponents the refutation that comes from examination, whenever they advance in impiety up to this point.

For he who says that the Only-begotten God is a servant by nature establishes Him, by the very things he says, as a fellow-servant with himself.

And from this a twofold absurdity will of necessity be brought together.

For either he will despise his fellow-servant and deny the faith, shaking off the yoke of Christ's lordship; or he will bow beneath the servant, and, turning away from the self-sovereign and unmastered nature, will in a certain manner worship himself in place of God.

For if he sees himself in servitude, and sees the object of worship also in servitude, then he who beholds another self in the object of worship simply looks to himself.

But indeed, as for all the other things that of necessity are contemplated together with this evil of the doctrine, what discourse could enumerate them? For who does not know that he who is a servant by nature and busied under a master's compulsion would not be free even from the passion of fear? For fear is somehow yoked together with the nature of servitude.

And of this the divine Apostle is witness, saying, 'You did not receive again a spirit of bondage unto fear.'

So that, after the likeness of men, they will also spread abroad the passion of fear concerning their fellow-servant God.

But such, indeed, is the god of the heresy.

But we who, according to the Apostle, have been called by Christ unto freedom by Him who freed us from bondage—I will set forth in a few words all that we have been taught by the Scriptures to hold.

For I, setting out from the divine teaching, confidently declare that the divine word does not will even us to be servants, our nature having been transformed unto the better; and He who took upon Himself all that is ours, in order to give us His own in return—as He took our diseases and death and the curse and sin, so also He took upon Himself servitude—not that He Himself might possess what He took, but that He might cleanse our nature of such things, when what is ours has been made to vanish in that undefiled nature.

As, therefore, in the life we hope for there will be no disease, no curse, no sin, no death, so together with these servitude too will pass away into abolition.

And that I speak the truth in these things, I call to witness the Truth itself, which says to the disciples, 'No longer do I call you servants, but friends.'

If, then, our condition shall one day be free from the reproach of servitude, how is the Master of all enslaved by the derangement and madness of these men out of their senses—who, in consequence, altogether deny that He even knows the things of the Father, on account of the declaration concerning servants which says, 'The servant does not know what his lord does'? But when they say these things, let them hear that the Son has in Himself all the things of the Father, and sees all that the Father does, and none of the Father's good things is outside the knowledge of the Only-begotten.

For how could He lack anything of the Father's, having the whole Father in Himself? Therefore, if the servant does not know what the master does, but He has in Himself all the things of the Father, let those who are frenzied by drunkenness at last become sober and now at least look up toward the truth: that He who has all that the Father has is Lord of all, and not a servant.

For how can the unmastered hypostasis bear upon itself a servile character, and how can the King of all not have a form of equal honor with Himself? Or how does dishonor shine forth from true glory? For servitude is dishonor.

And how is the King's Son born into servitude? These things are not so, they are not so.

But as light from light, and life from life, and truth from truth, so also Lord from Lord, King from King, God from God, unmastered from unmastered.

For having the whole Father in Himself, whatever the Father has in Himself He assuredly has.

And since all things that the Son has are the Father's, it is of all necessity that, according to the enemies of God's glory—if indeed the Son is a servant—the Father too must be brought down into servitude.

For there is nothing of the things contemplated in the Son which is not altogether the Father's.

For 'All that is Mine is Thine,' He says, 'and Thine Mine.'

These things Eunomius accomplishes through his wisdom—by which he insults the Lord with servitude, fastening the same dishonor upon the undefiled glory of the Father as well.

But let us run back again to the sequence of what has been written.

What does Eunomius say concerning the Only-begotten? That He does not appropriate to Himself this dignity.

For he calls 'dignity' the appellation of Him who is (the Being).

Which of all the men who have ever existed, whether among the Greeks or in barbarian philosophy—which of our own contemporaries, which of any in all time—ever set 'dignity' as the name for that which is? For everything contemplated in real subsistence, the common usage of those who employ reason calls simply 'to be.'

And it is from 'to be' (einai) that the appellation 'the Being' (to on) has been formed.

But now the term 'dignity' is being coined as a novelty against the signification of 'the Being.'

For he says that the Son does not appropriate to Himself the dignity of the Being—He who exists and lives through the Father—having neither Scripture to set forward in support of the statement, nor having led his argument to this folly through any logical sequence, but as though having lodged some flatulent nourishment in his bowels, he belches forth his blasphemy, unformed and unreasoned, like some foul-smelling breath.

'He does not appropriate,' he says, 'this dignity.'

Let it be granted that 'the Being' is named 'dignity.'

Why, then, does He who is not appropriate 'to be'? 'Because,' he says, 'He exists through the Father.'

Do you not, then, say that He who does not appropriate 'to be' does not exist? For 'not to appropriate' signifies the same as 'to be alienated,' and the antithesis of the things signified is evident.

For that which is one's own is not alien, and that which is alien is not one's own.

Therefore he who does not appropriate 'to be' is altogether alienated from 'to be.'

And he who is alien to 'to be' is not in 'to be' (does not exist).

But he brought on the necessity of this absurdity by saying that the essence which lords it even over this One draws to itself the notion of 'the Being.'

Of this, let what is incoherent in its very construction be passed over in silence, and let what is aimed at in the words be examined.

By what demonstrating argument does he again belch out to us from his overflow that the Father's essence lords it over the Only-begotten? What evangelist stood forth in support of this statement? What dialectical approach, what premises, what constructions demonstrated—by what logical sequence—that the Only-begotten God is lorded over? But 'the lording essence,' he says, 'draws to itself the notion of the Son who is.'

What does he mean by this 'drawing' of the Being, and how has the word 'to draw' been flung in among the things said? He who has examined the force of words will surely judge.

But this too we will pass over in silence, and take up again that other statement—that he does not grant existence according to essence to Him for whom he does not leave the name of the Being.

And why does he vainly fight with shadows, contending about that which is not as though it were such a thing? For that which is not is neither like anything at all nor unlike.

But while granting existence, he forbids the naming of it.

O empty exactitude, that concedes the greater point while quibbling with petty precision over the mere sound of the word!

But how does He who, as he says, lords it over the Son draw to Himself the notion of the Being? For if he says that the Father draws His own essence, this drawing is superfluous.

For 'to be' is present to Him even without being drawn.

But if he says that the Son's existence is drawn from the Father, how the existence of the Being shall be torn away from it and pass over to Him who draws, I cannot see.

Does he perhaps imagine the error of Sabellius—as though the Son did not exist in Himself, but was smeared onto the hypostasis of the Father—and is this what he means by 'the notion of the Being being drawn away by the lording essence of the Son'? Or, while not denying that the Son exists according to hypostasis, does he say that He is deprived of the signification of 'the Being'? And how can 'the Being' be severed from the concept of 'to be'? For so long as anything is whatever it may be, it has no nature of not-being what it is.

But let us proceed to what comes next in his discourse.

'Since the Only-begotten Himself,' he says, 'renders to the Father the appellation owed to Him alone according to dignity.'

'Referring both the Being and the good that comes into being upon Him, He would hardly appropriate to Himself the authority of things that once came to be, and the appellation of the Being.'

So long, then, as by hiding his blasphemy under certain veils he sought secretly to lead on those deceived by the windings of his reasonings, I thought it necessary to apply my mind to the mischief being wrought in hiding, and, as far as possible, to lay bare the ruin by argument.

But since, having stripped off from all deceitful masks the falsehood, he sets forth his blasphemy in plain and shining words, I consider it superfluous to endure the vain trouble of bringing refutations through reasonings against those who do not deny their impiety.

For what more could be found from us for the demonstration of their evil-mindedness than the very thing which is readily displayed by themselves in their writings?

He says that the Father alone is worthy of the appellation of 'the Good,' that to Him alone such a name is owed—as though the Son too agrees that goodness belongs to Him alone.

The accuser has made a defense on our behalf.

For perhaps in the preceding pages I was thought by my readers to be a slanderer, in those passages where I was demonstrating that the enemies of Christ make the Lord alien to the Father's goodness.

But now I think it has been demonstrated, through the confession of our opponents themselves, that we do not bring such a charge against our enemies by way of calumny.

For he who says that the title of 'the Good' is by right owed to the Father alone, and who declares that such a name belongs to Him alone, now makes public in openly unveiled speech the wickedness that was cloaked in what went before.

'To the Father alone,' he says, 'does the title of the Good belong.'

Does he mean this together with the meaning inherent in the word, or divorced from its proper import? Now if it is only the name of 'the Good' that he attributes to the Father as something distinctive, he would be a pitiable case of irrationality, bestowing upon the Father the sound of an empty word.

But if he supposes that the notion signified by 'the Good' belongs to God the Father alone, then he would be abominable for his impiety, renewing in his own doctrines the disease of the Manichaeans.

For just as health and sickness, so also goodness and wickedness subsist by the mutual abolition of one another, so that the absence of the one becomes the existence of the other.

If, then, he says that goodness belongs to the Father alone, he shuts out from it everything whatsoever that is conceived among existing things apart from the Father, so that together with all the rest the Only-begotten God too is excluded from the Good.

For just as one who says that man alone is capable of laughter thereby indicates that none of the other animals partakes of this property, so he who declares that the Good is in the Father alone separates all things from the property of being good.

If, then, the Father alone has the title of the Good owed to Him by right, as Eunomius says, such a name will properly fit none of the others.

But every impulse of the will is either altogether exercised toward the good or borne toward its opposite.

For to incline toward neither is proper to inanimate things or to things devoid of sensation.

If, then, the Father alone is good, having goodness not as an acquired thing but in His very nature, and if the Son does not share in the nature of the Father, as the heresy would have it, then he who has no part in the good essence is also of course estranged from the title of the Good.

And he who partakes neither of the nature of the Good nor of its title is by no means unknown as to who he is, even though I spare the blasphemous name.

For it is clear to everyone that Eunomius is contending to insinuate the wicked and opposing one into the concept of the Son.

For to what name he who is not good properly belongs is evident to everyone who partakes of understanding.

For just as one who is not brave is a coward, one who is not just is unjust, and one who is not wise is foolish, so also one who is not good manifestly has the answering name applied to him—the very name toward which this fighter against Christ forces the concept of the Only-begotten, becoming another Manes or Bardesanes to the Church.

These are the matters concerning which we assert that our own discourse is no clearer than silence.

Even having spoken and stirred up every argument, one could not utter anything so damning by way of accusation as what is openly proclaimed by those very men themselves.

For what more bitter thing could one find, tending toward malice, than to refuse to say that He is good who, though existing in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but descended to the lowliness of human nature, doing this out of love for mankind alone? For what, tell me, do you render to the Lord in return for these things (for I shall make use of the words of Moses to the Israelites)? Is He not good who, when you were lifeless dust, adorned you with godlike beauty and raised you up as a living image of His own power? Is He not good who for your sake took the form of a servant, and in place of the joy set before Him took upon Himself the sufferings due to your sin, and gave Himself as a ransom for your death, becoming for our sakes a curse and sin? Did not even Marcion, the champion of your doctrines, correct you in this respect? He indeed holds in common with your way of thinking the duality of gods and the supposition that each of the two differs in nature from the other; yet he is more benevolent in bearing witness to goodness in the God of the Gospel.

But you separate the Only-begotten God even from the nature of the Good, so as to outstrip even Marcion in the wickedness of your doctrine.

But they lay hold of what is written and say that they do not suffer justly in being accused on account of the words of Scripture.

For they say that the Lord Himself said, 'No one is good except God alone.'

Therefore, that this false accusation may not have its force even against the divine words, we shall examine the evangelical text itself briefly.

The narrative knows this rich man to have been young, to whom the Lord spoke this word—a man, I suppose, given to the enjoyment of the pleasures of this life and fond of possessions.

For it says that he was grieved at the counsel to give up the things belonging to him, and did not choose to exchange his possessions for life.

This man, when he heard that a certain teacher of eternal life had come to dwell among them, came forward with the hope of luxuriating forever, his life being prolonged without end, flattering the Lord with the appellation of 'good'—or rather not the Lord as apprehended in His divinity, but the one who appeared in the form of the servant.

For he was not such as to be able to pierce through the veil of the flesh and to gaze into the unapproachable inner sanctuary of the Godhead.

The Lord, therefore, who sees the hearts, perceived toward what the young man was looking as he made his petition—namely, that he did not have his soul fixed upon the divine, but was importuning the man, calling Him a good teacher because of the hope of learning some such lesson through which he expected to ward off death.

Fittingly, therefore, this one who was thus entreated by him also answers accordingly.

For since the entreaty was not made toward God the Word, consequently the answer too comes from the human element to the one petitioning, bringing a twofold instruction to the young man.