For what that which is both produced out of non-existence and comprehended within it is conceived to be, is surely plain to everyone—namely, that it is nothing.
Now this necessity which forces these things upon the divine nature and apportions the greater and the lesser—we have neither learned it from him, nor been able, from ourselves, to understand it up to now.
For meanwhile there prevails among all who accept the plain simplicity of the simpler proclamation the doctrine that no Necessity lies above the divine nature which would bend and force it toward the lesser, as though the Only-begotten were one of those bought with silver.
And indeed the necessity does not bring the argument to this alone, but constructs something yet more, tending to blasphemy, as has already been partly examined beforehand.
For if the Son is not from the Father, but sprang up out of some non-subsistent energy, he will be conceived not only as lesser than the Father, but the doctrine will altogether necessitate Judaizing.
For the sequence of this necessity shows the result of the non-existent to be no small thing, but such as it is not safe even to utter, even by way of accusation.
For just as it is necessarily confessed that that which has its generation from Him who is, is; so, conversely, it will of necessity be confessed that that which springs up from that which is not, <is not>.
For when something itself is not, how shall it give subsistence to another out of itself? If, then, the energy that attends God but works the Son is not in its own essence, who is so blind as not to perceive the construction of the blasphemy—that their aim looks toward the denial of our very Savior? And if the sequence of their doctrine steals away from the faith the subsistence of the Son, leaving him nothing but a bare name, hardly then could the Holy Spirit be believed to exist in its own hypostasis, seeing that it is genealogized through the sequence of things without existence.
For when the energy attending God does not exist in essence, and the argument necessarily apprehends the result of it to be without existence, and there attends this in turn yet another non-existence of energy, and then it is constructed that the Spirit came to be through this—how is the blasphemy not plain to all, that after the God who is unbegottenly they construct that nothing truly subsists, their doctrine advancing through certain shadowy and non-existent fabrications and resting upon nothing that truly subsists?
For they do indeed profess, and act humanely in argument, conceding <that> subsistence in a proper hypostasis belongs both to the Only-begotten Son and to the Holy Spirit.
But if, while confessing these things, they also confessed along with them the pious suppositions concerning them, they would surely not be at war with the doctrine of the Church, nor would they be severing themselves from the common hope of Christians.
But if, as though laying beneath themselves some matter and occasion for blasphemy, they for this reason grant being to the Son and to the Spirit, then perhaps—though it may be bold to say it—it would have been more profitable for them to have deserted to the worship of the Jews, having abjured the faith, than to insult the appellation of Christians through a seeming confession.
For those, having remained unreceptive of the word until now, are impious only to this extent: that they do not confess the Christ who has come, but hope that he will come.
But those of the new circumcision, or rather, as the Apostle says, of the concision, do not deny that the awaited one has come, but they imitate those who dishonored the Lord's coming in the flesh through unbelief and insolence.
In the same way these too, denying the confession of the majestic and lofty and ineffable generation from the Father, construct that he has his being through creation, whence generation belongs also to human nature and to all things that have come to be.
As for the rest, how could anyone recount them worthily—through how many and what manner of things they display their insolence against the Only-begotten? For fabricating beforehand a certain activity of that hypostasis of Christ, they call Him a work and a product—something the Jews have not to this very day dared to say.
Then they circumscribe the Lord's nature, shutting Him within certain bounds of the power that made Him, and as it were fencing Him about with a kind of measure by the quantity of the activity that gave Him subsistence—as though hemmed in on every side, as by a garment, by the activity they have devised.
Then they contemplate a certain smallness in the essence by way of diminution—I know not by what method—having measured out by their own supposition Him who is without quantity and without magnitude, and having managed to discover how much is lacking to the greatness of the Only-begotten God for His perfection; for by the absence of this He is beheld in what is lesser and imperfect.
And many other things—confessing some openly, but constructing others covertly—they made the confession of the Son and of the Holy Spirit an exercise-ground of their wickedness.
How then are they not more pitiable than the Jewish condemnation, if what those men never dared is thus openly constructed by these? For he who lessens the essence of the Only-begotten and of the Holy Spirit seems, simply to say or to hear it, perhaps to commit but a small impiety.
And let it be conceded to me—for the sake of instruction and of clarity concerning the falsehood constructed by our opponents—to advance the argument to the setting forth of our own convictions.
For since every body is in color, and sight has its apprehension of this, he set aside the remaining qualities—as many as are essentially conjoined to it—and, from what lies ready at hand to sense-perception, he called it 'visible.'
For by logical sequence one is grasped as uncreated and the other as created: the uncreated being that which makes creation, and the created being that which has the cause and power of its being through the uncreated nature.
Now among the sensibles are all things that we apprehend through the senses of the body, in which the differences of qualities admit the notion of the greater and the lesser, the difference in them being contemplated according to quantity and quality and the remaining distinctive features.
But in the intelligible nature—I mean that which is in creation—such a notion of difference as was grasped in the sensibles has no place, but some other manner is found that discovers the difference of the greater in relation to the lesser.
Since, by necessity, according to the analogy of participation in the higher things—some partaking more and others less according to the self-determination of choice—the more and the less is recognized in creation in proportion to each one's impulse.
For since the nature contemplated in creation stands on the border between good things and their opposites, so as to be receptive of either according to its power, inclining as it wills—as we have learned from Scripture—there is room, in relation to withdrawal from the worse and approach to the good, to speak of more and less in that which excels according to virtue.
But the uncreated nature is far removed from any such difference, inasmuch as it does not have its good as something acquired, nor receives the good within itself by participation in some superior good, but is that very thing which it is by nature—good—and is conceived as good, and is a fountain of good, simple and uniform and uncompounded, and is testified to even by those who war against us.
But it has a difference in relation to itself that befits the majesty of the nature, not contemplated in terms of greater and lesser, as Eunomius supposes.
For he who lessens the notion concerning the good in any one of those believed to be within the Holy Trinity will altogether contrive that something of the opposite condition be mingled into that which falls short in respect of the good—which it is not pious to reckon either of the Only-begotten or of the Holy Spirit.
But being contemplated in the utmost perfection and in incomprehensible transcendence, it has—by the properties inhering in each of the hypostases—a difference unconfused and distinct: having in the fellowship according to the uncreated that which is unvarying, but in the special properties the incommunicable feature of each.
But the Son, joined to the Father and the Spirit according to the uncreated, has that which is peculiar to Him in being and being named Son and Only-begotten—which belongs neither to the God over all nor to the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit, having fellowship with the Son and the Father in the uncreatedness of the nature, is again distinguished from them by His own marks.
And from the conjunction with the Son according to the uncreated [and in having the cause of His existence from the God of all], He again stands apart by that which is peculiar to Him—in not having subsisted from the Father as only-begotten, and in having been made manifest through the Son Himself.
And again, since creation subsisted through the Only-begotten, lest the Spirit be thought to have any commonality with it by reason of having been manifested through the Son, the Spirit is distinguished from creation by being unchangeable and unalterable and by not needing goodness from any other source.
For creation does not have unchangeableness in its nature, as Scripture says when recounting the fall of the morning-star, concerning whom the Lord also, revealing the mysteries to the disciples, said:
Let us therefore consider by what conception he devises the necessity of such a difference: whether some corporeal comparison arises between the things measured against one another, or whether it is contemplated intelligibly in that which surpasses and falls short according to virtue, or according to the essence itself.
But concerning the essence it was shown by those skilled in philosophizing on such matters that no difference can be conceived, if one strips it bare and denudes it of the qualities and properties contemplated in it and examines it in itself according to the account of being.
But to conceive such a difference concerning the Only-begotten and the Spirit by intensification and remission of virtue, and on this account necessarily to posit their nature as changeable in either direction—as being equally receptive of opposites and lying on the border of good and its opposite—this is of the utmost impiety.
For he who says these things will be establishing that it is one thing according to its own account, and becomes another thing by participation in the good and the worse.
As happens in the case of iron, which, being much conversant with fire, takes on the quality of heat while remaining in being iron; but if it comes to be in snow or ice, it changes its quality toward what prevails, receiving the coldness of the snow into its own parts.
As then we do not name the material from the quality beheld in the iron (for we do not call fire or ice that which has been qualified by one of these), so, if it be granted according to the argument of the impious that in the life-giving power the good does not inhere according to essence but accrues from participation, it will no longer properly be named from the appellation of the good; rather, such a supposition will compel one to conceive something else—so that neither is the good beheld in it eternally, nor is it apprehended as that very thing which is in the nature of the good, but as though at one time the good was not in it and at some time will not be.
For if by partaking of the better they become good, it is clear that before the participation they were not such; and if, being something else, they were tinged by the presence of the good, then assuredly, even if isolated from it, they will be conceived as something other than the good.
And if this prevails, the divine nature will be apprehended not so much as one that bestows good things, but rather as itself in need of that which makes good.
For how could anyone bestow on another that which he himself does not have? If then it has it perfectly, we shall conceive no remission in the perfection, and in vain is he who constructs the lesser within the perfect.
But if the participation of the good is thought to be imperfect in them, and on this account they speak of the lesser, consider the consequence: that what is thus disposed will not benefit the inferior, but will have its zeal directed toward filling up what is lacking to itself.
So that, according to them, false is the account of providence, and of judgment, and of the economy, and of all things believed to have been done and to be done forever by the Only-begotten—since He is, as would follow, reasonably occupied with the care for His own good and neglects the oversight of the whole.
For if this suspicion should prevail—that the Lord has not been perfected in every good—it is no longer difficult to perceive to what end the blasphemy comes down.
...the appetite for the more will in no way come to rest, but, with the desire ever stretching out toward what has not yet been grasped, that which is lesser will always crave the more, and will ever be changed toward the greater, and will never arrive at the perfect, since it finds no limit, upon grasping which it might rest from its ascent.
For since the first good is infinite in nature, of necessity the participation of the one enjoying it will also be infinite, ever laying hold of the more and always finding what is beyond what has been grasped, and never able to be made equal to it, since neither is that which is partaken bounded, nor does that which is increased through participation ever come to a stand.
But if they contemplate the greater and the lesser in them according to some corporeal supposition, at once the absurdity of the argument is confessed, even if it be not examined precisely in every detail.
For there is every necessity that certain qualities and dimensions, and masses and shapes, and all the things by which the account of a body is filled out, be introduced along with these suppositions even into the divine nature.
But from the absurdity of the dogma that dares to declare the lesser and the surpassing in things without magnitude and incomparable, these and such-like things are constructed, as the argument has shown a few out of many.
For since the God-inspired testimony is the sure criterion of truth upon every dogma, I think it well to confirm our own argument also by the juxtaposition of the divine words.
We have then recognized these differences in the division of beings: first that which is first as regards our apprehension—I mean the sensible—and after this that which is contemplated by the mind through the guidance of the sensibles, which indeed we say is intelligible.
In order, then, that our distinction may not be without demonstration, but secured by the testimonies of Scripture, we will add this to what has been said: that the Lord was not created, but came forth from the Father, as God the Word Himself testifies in His own person in the Gospel, according to that ineffable and inexpressible manner of His begetting, or rather of His coming forth.
And who could be found a truer witness than the voice of the Lord, who throughout the whole Gospel calls His true Father 'Father' and not His creator, and names Himself not a work of God but the Son of God? For just as, signifying His fleshly fellowship with humanity, He called the visible 'Son of Man,' showing the natural kinship of His flesh with that from which it was taken, so also He indicates His true and genuine relation to the God of all by the title of 'Son,' displaying through the word 'Son' the intimacy that belongs to Him by nature.
And even if some, from the proverbial saying, bring forward, bare and uninterpreted, the words spoken darkly in a parable through a riddle, and put forward the phrase 'was created' (which the writer of Proverbs made in the person of Wisdom) to overturn the truth, employing it as an advocate for the perversion of their doctrine, saying that 'The Lord created me' is a confession that the Lord was created, as though the Only-begotten Himself did not deny such a thing by this utterance, we must not give heed to this argument.
for neither will they be able to show that the sense of the phrase, drawn from the Hebrew Scripture, bears this meaning, since the other translators rendered 'He acquired' and 'He established' instead of 'He created'; nor, even if the word stood thus in the original text, would the sense be ready to hand and clear, since the teaching of Proverbs indicates the aim of what is said not plainly, but with concealment, through an oblique intimation, as one may recognize the difficulty of grasping the passage from the context of what is said in this place, where it says, 'When He set apart His own throne upon the winds,' and the like.
'For all things,' he says, 'came into being through Him, and without Him came into being not one thing that has come into being in Him' — he would not have made this determination if he had believed the Lord Himself to be one of the things that came into being.
For how do all things come to be through Him, and how do created things have their constitution in Him, unless the Maker, being altogether something other than the nature of the things made, wrought not Himself but the creation? For if the creation is through Him, but the Lord Himself is not through Himself, then He is altogether something other and not creation.
Now when the Evangelist has said that 'All things came into being through Him, and without Him came into being not one thing that has come into being in Him,' and has clearly shown by these words that in the Son the things that came to be have come to be, and that they had their passage into being through no other, Paul takes up this saying; and, so as to leave no pretext for the blasphemous notion of numbering the nature of the Spirit also among the things that have come to be, he brings all things under enumeration, showing what these are, all of which were both spoken and intended by the Evangelist.
'For things visible,' he says, 'and invisible' — by 'the visible,' as has been said, embracing under the name the things known to sense-perception, and by 'the invisible' indicating the nature of the intelligible things.
But having mentioned the invisible things, since the nature of the Spirit too is intellectual and incorporeal, lest anyone should suppose, on account of their common share in invisibility, that the Spirit subsists among these, he makes a most clear division between the things that have come to be through creation and the essence that is above creation.
For the things that were created he enumerates in his discourse, speaking of certain thrones and principalities and authorities and dominions, making his teaching about these invisible powers under certain generic and comprehensive names; but the things above creation he separates, by his very silence, from the number of the things created.
Just as, if someone were to name in detail the lower ranks — brigade-commanders and captains, centurions and commanders of thousands, and whatever other subordinate offices have received names — and, having gone through them all in his discourse, were to make no mention of the sovereignty that rules over all and governs all power: he would have passed over the supreme rule in silence not out of contempt or forgetfulness, but because, having been either commanded or resolved to go through only the subordinate and subject rank, he would have done insult to it by including the ruling power in the recollection of the subordinates — so it seems to me that Paul also, who was initiated into the ineffable things in paradise, when he was caught up into it and, becoming a spectator of the supra-heavenly wonders, both saw and heard the things unspeakable for men: he, having set out to teach the things created in the Lord, when he had gone through them in his discourse, running over the angelic and supra-cosmic power with certain comprehensive terms, halted his discourse at the things mentioned, drawing nothing of the things above creation into the catalogue of created things, so that from this the Holy Spirit is clearly attested by Scripture to be above creation.
But if anyone should overturn this argument, saying that neither were the Cherubim mentioned by Paul, but that these too, along with the Spirit, were passed over in silence in the enumeration of things created, and should argue, from the omission of any mention of them, that either these too are above creation, or else that the Spirit need not be thought to be so either, let him consider the sense of the things enumerated, and he will perceive in what has been said that what seems to be omitted is included, even though the mention was not made by name.
For he who mentioned 'thrones' described the Cherubim under another name, rendering into Greek by the more familiar appellation the obscurity of the Hebrew.
And that these powers, which do the will of God, are ministers, he hinted through the purification of sins that was accomplished, according to the will of Him who sent him, by one of the Seraphim.
Which things the divine Apostle, it seems to me, having pondered, and having learned that the same thing is signified by the two prophets under different appellations, chose the most familiar of the terms and named the Seraphim 'powers,' so that no occasion might be left to the slanderers to say that the Holy Spirit too is included, on an equal footing with one of these, in the catalogue of creation.
For some things have been mentioned, as has been demonstrated, while others have been passed over in silence, as one may learn from the things enumerated by Paul, who enumerated all creation in the plural, but made mention of none of the things spoken of in the singular.
But all the things mentioned are enumerated in the plural — principalities and authorities and dominions and powers — so as to give no ground for the suspicion that the Holy Spirit too is one of these.
for he knows how to hear the unspeakable words in paradise, yet to refrain from uttering forth the things that may not be spoken, whenever he is making his discourse about the lower things.
These men, outraging the Spirit by reckoning it among creation, as though they had not heard that God the Word Himself, when handing down to the disciples the mystery of the knowledge of God, said that for those being reborn in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit life is both fulfilled and comes to pass; and by co-ordering the Spirit with the Father and Himself, He separated it from the suspicion concerning creation.
so that from both there arises a pious and fitting conception concerning it: Paul, in his mention of creation, keeping silent about the nature of the Spirit, and the Lord, in His mention of the life-giving power, joining the Holy Spirit together with the Father and Himself.