Refutation of Eunomius 1 part 4/6

Therefore, just as he becomes physician to the one who needs healing, so also he becomes Almighty to the one who needs to be held fast;

and just as "those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill," so, by the same reasoning, it may rightly be said that he who has in his nature the unwandering and unchanging no longer needs one who holds him fast

Therefore, whenever we hear the word "Almighty," this is what we understand: that God holds all things together in being, both whatever is intelligible and whatever belongs to material creation

He measures the water with his hand; for this reason he also encompasses within himself all intelligible creation, so that all things might remain in being, held fast by his all-encompassing power

Let us then examine who it is that works all things in all

Who is he who made all things, apart from whom nothing among beings exists? Who is he in whom all things were created, and in whom beings have their continuance? In whom do we live and move and have our being? Who is he who has in himself all that the Father has? Do we still, through what has been said, fail to know God over all, thus named by Paul, our Lord Jesus Christ — who, having in his hand all that belongs to the Father, as he himself says, has surely grasped all things fast in his all-encompassing palm and holds fast what he has grasped, and no one takes anything out of the hand of him who holds all things fast in his hand? If, then, he has all things and holds fast what he has, what else, and surely not "Almighty," is he who holds all things fast? But if the heresy should say that the Father holds fast both the Son and the Spirit, let them first demonstrate that the Son and the Holy Spirit are of a mutable nature, and then let them set the one who holds fast over the one being changed, so that, by the help coming from above, that which is held fast might remain unchanging with respect to evil

But if the divine nature is incapable of receiving evil, immutable and unalterable, and ever remains the same, in what respect will it be in need of one to hold it fast — that nature which of itself holds fast all creation, while itself, on account of its immutability, has no need of one to hold it fast? For this reason, at the name of Christ every knee bows, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth

For it would not have bowed, had it not surely known him as the one who holds fast unto salvation

But to say that the Son was begotten by the goodness of the Father is nothing other than to place him on equal honor with the lowest of creation

For what did not come into being through the goodness of its Maker? To what is the constitution of human nature attributed — to the wickedness or to the goodness of the one who made it? And the generation of animals, the nature of plants and shoots — to what are these attributed? There is nothing that did not have its coming-into-being through the goodness of its Maker.

This, then, which reason sees to hold in the case of all things, Eunomius bestows upon the Son out of benevolence.

As for his prating that the Son does not divide off the essence or the dignity from the Father, or whatever other such nonsense he goes on about, this has already been refuted beforehand in the discourse concerning the Father, since he flung out these things in vain and without any reflection.

For not even among us, who are begotten one from another, does any division of essence occur;

for in each the whole principle of the essence remains — both in the one begotten and in the one who begat — the principle of the essence undergoing neither diminution in the begetter nor increase in the begotten.

And the division of dignity or kingship, in the case of one who possesses everything that belongs to the Father, has no sense at all, except as a proof of impiety.

It would therefore be superfluous to extend our discourse beyond measure by engaging with such matters; let us instead pass on to what follows.

The argument of the truth has been demonstrated, being confirmed by the testimony of enemies.

For this is the sum of our faith: that the Son is glorified by the Father from eternity.

For "before the age" is, in meaning, identical with "eternal," as prophecy interprets for us the eternity of God in the words, "He who exists before the ages."

If, then, to exist before the ages lies outside every beginning, then he who ascribes to the Son glory before the ages has, even prior to that, borne witness to his existence from eternity.

For it is not that which does not exist, but that which exists, that is in every case glorified.

After this, he sows for himself the seeds of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, not in order to glorify the Son, but in order to insult the Holy Spirit.

For wishing to show the Holy Spirit to be a part of the angelic power, he threw out this remark, saying that the Son is glorified by the Spirit throughout the age, and by every rational and begotten essence;

thus the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord in the same way as all the other things the prophet enumerates: the angels and the powers, and the heavens of heavens, and the water above the world, and all the things of the earth — sea monsters, the depths, fire, hail, snow, ice, the stormy wind, the mountains and all the hills, the fruit-bearing trees and all the cedars, the wild beasts and all the cattle, creeping things and winged birds.

If, then, he says that the Holy Spirit glorifies the Lord together with these, that God-fighting tongue thereby altogether declares the Spirit itself also to be one of these.

As for what follows next, incoherently appended, I say it is well to pass over it — not because it is beyond refutation, but because it is the sort of thing that could even be said by the pious, were it only separated from its ill-natured implication.

For if there is anything added by him that tends toward piety, such a thing is held out to the more guileless as bait, so that along with it the hook of impiety may also be swallowed.

For having said certain things that even a churchman might say, he adds: "obedient with respect to the creating and coming-into-being of existing things, obedient with respect to all administration" — not having received his being Son or God from obedience, but having become, from being Son and being begotten, only-begotten God, obedient in words, obedient in deeds.

And yet who among those familiar with the divine utterances does not know when it was said by the great Paul — and this only once — concerning him, that he "became obedient"? For it was when he came to fulfill the mystery accomplished through the cross, he who emptied himself in the form of a slave and humbled himself in the likeness and fashion of man, being found as a man in the lowly nature of human beings — then he who took up our weaknesses and bore our sicknesses becomes obedient, healing the disobedience of human beings through his own obedience, so that by his bruise he might heal our wound and, through his own death, blot out the common death of human beings — then, for our sake, he becomes obedient, just as he also became sin and curse on account of the dispensation on our behalf, not being this by nature, but having become so out of loving-kindness.

But from what utterance was he taught this catalogue of so many "obediences"? On the contrary, all inspired Scripture bears witness to his authoritative and sovereign power, saying, "He spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created";

for it is clear that the prophet says these things concerning him who bears all things by the word of his power, whose authority, by the impulse of will alone, constituted every essence and nature, and all things in creation, both those conceived by thought and those seen.

From what motive, then, is Eunomius moved to attribute obedience to the King of creation in countless ways, calling him obedient with respect to all creating, and obedient with respect to all administration, obedient in deeds, in words? And yet it is clear to everyone that this is the case: only one who has not yet perfected in himself the disposition to act with precision or to speak unassailably becomes obedient to another in words and deeds alone — one who, looking rather to his own teacher and guide, is trained by that one's precepts in precision in words and in deeds.

But to suppose that Wisdom needs an overseer and a teacher to direct truth or justice toward what befits it, belongs to Eunomius' fancy alone.

And concerning the Father he says that he is "faithful in words and faithful in deeds," but to the Son he did not attest faithfulness in what is done and said; instead he declared him to be "obedient in words" and not faithful — so that in everything he says, he maintains the same measure of blasphemy against him.

But perhaps it is fitting to pass over in silence the foolish and unintelligible statement inserted between these things, lest some thoughtless person should laugh at its vanity, when one ought rather to weep over the destruction of their souls than to laugh at the folly of their words.

For this wise and circumspect dogmatist says that he did not receive his being Son from obedience.

He determines that he did not first become obedient and only then Son, nor should one think his obedience to be prior to his begetting.

But if he had not further specified this, who would be so foolish and stupid as to think that begetting was given to him by the Father as the wages of obedience, as though he had displayed compliance and obedience prior to his begetting? But lest anyone be swept away too hastily into laughter by the folly of what is said, let him consider that the folly of these words also has within it something worthy of tears.

For what he wishes to establish by this is as follows: that obedience is nature to him, such that it is not even possible for him, even if he willed it, not to be obedient.

For he says that he has been so constructed that his nature is fitted only for obedience.

just as, among instruments, that which has been shaped to a certain pattern necessarily imprints that form upon its material — the form which the smith deposited in the making of the instrument — so that it has no power either to make a straight mark upon that which receives it, if its working be curved, or to display a circle by its imprint, if the instrument happens to have been shaped in a straight line.

But how great the blasphemy of such a notion is — what need is there to expose it through our own words, when the very absurdity of the heretical voice cries it aloud? For if he is obedient for this reason, that he was made such, then he does not even have full equality with human nature, seeing that for us the soul is self-determining and unmastered, choosing sovereignly and by its own authority what is agreeable to it, whereas he, yoked under the necessity of nature, operates thus at all times — or rather, he suffers his obedience, since nature does not permit him to do otherwise even if he should not wish it;

for from being Son and having been begotten, this one has become obedient in words and obedient in deeds.

O the senselessness of this doctrine!

You make the Word obedient to words, and before the true Word you devise other words as well; and another word of the Beginning mediates for the Word who is in the beginning, ferrying across to him the Beginning's will.

And this is not one alone, but there are also several such words that Eunomius inserts between the Beginning and the Word, employing them for his obedience as seems fit to him.

But what need is there to linger over the vanity of what is said? For it is plain to everyone that even when Paul said that he "had become obedient" (and he said this in the sense that he had become obedient by becoming flesh, and a slave, and a curse, and sin for our sake), not even then did the Lord of glory — who despised the shame and took upon himself the suffering in the flesh — estrange himself from his authoritative power, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," and again, "No one takes my life from me; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

And when, on the night before the Passion, those armed with iron and clubs drew near to him, he turned them all back with the words, "I am he";

and again, when the thief entreated to be remembered by him, he showed his authority over all things in the words, "Today you will be with me in Paradise."

If, then, he is not separated from his authority even at the time of the Passion, where then does the heresy find any subjection under authority in the King of glory? And what is this manifold mediation it keeps prating about with regard to God, calling him a mediator in doctrines, a mediator in law? These are not the things we were taught by the lofty voice of the Apostle, who says that he who abolished the law of commandments by his own doctrines — this is the mediator of God and men — speaking thus in the words: "There is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus."

Here he has, by distinguishing through the term "mediator," revealed to us the whole purpose of the mystery.

Humanity once fell away through the wickedness of the adversary, and, having been enslaved to sin, was also estranged from true life.

according to Christ, man having accomplished the mediation, in whom, through the firstfruits of our nature that were assumed, the whole lump was, by his power, commingled together with the Godhead.

Since, then, "the mediator is not of one," but God is one — not divided among the persons handed down in the faith (for the Godhead is one in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) — for this reason the Lord becomes, once for all, mediator of God and men, joining man through himself to the Godhead.

But we have also been taught the piety of the faith through the concept concerning the mediator.

For just as the mediator of God and men received participation in human nature — not being merely reputed a man, but having become one in truth — so too, being true God, he is not honored with a bare title of divinity, as Eunomius would have it.

But whatever he adds to what has been said partakes of the same folly — or rather, malice.

For having called him Son — whom, a little earlier, he had clearly determined to be a creature — and having named him only-begotten God — whom he numbered among the rest of the things that came into being through creation — he said that he is like the one who begot him only according to a special likeness, according to a peculiar sense.

It is necessary, then, first to distinguish the meaning of "like" — in how many senses it is used in the loose application of common usage — and then thus to proceed to the examination of the matters before us.

For, first, there are those things which falsely deceive our senses — things not the same as one another in nature, but through some attribute accompanying the underlying subjects (I mean shape, color, and sound, and whatever produces false reasoning through taste, smell, and touch) — being, in nature, other than one another, yet feigning to be other than what they naturally are: such things common usage says are "alike";

as, for instance, when lifeless matter is shaped by art into an imitation of some living creature, through carving, or painting, or modeling — the imitation is said to be "like" the archetype.

For here the nature of the living creature is one thing, and the nature of the matter that deceives the sight merely by color and shape is another.

Of the same kind of likeness also is the image in a mirror of the archetypal form, bearing vivid reflections, yet not being, in nature, that very thing which the archetype is.

In the same way, the hearing too can undergo a like experience, when someone, imitating the voice of the nightingale with a sound of his own, persuades the hearing to suppose it is listening to the bird.

Taste, too, undergoes such a false reasoning, when the juice of the fig fruit feigns the sweetness of honey;

for the juice of that fruit has something resembling the sweetness of honey.

In this way, the sense of smell too can sometimes be led into false reasoning by likeness, when the scent of the chamomile plant, imitating by its fragrance the sweet-smelling apple itself, deceives the sense.

In the same manner, in touch also, likeness in various ways falsifies the truth, as when a coin of silver or bronze, equal in size to a gold one and matching it in weight, is mistaken for gold, sight failing to discern the truth.

These things have been stated in general, briefly, concerning all that produces, through some likeness, false reasoning in the senses, being taken for something other than what it is.

It is possible, by a more diligent examination, to extend the discussion further through actual instances — as many as differ in kind from one another, yet through some accompanying attribute the one is thought to be made like the other.

Is it, then, some such kind of likeness that he keeps prating about with regard to the Son? But he could not go so far into madness as to regard this deceptive likeness as pertaining to the truth.

Again, we have been taught another kind of likeness in the divinely inspired Scripture, by him who said, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness."

But I do not think Eunomius has in view, with respect to the Son and the Father, this kind of likeness — as though he would declare the only-begotten God to be the same as man in this manner.

The passage concerns Seth, that Adam begot Seth according to his form and according to his likeness;

if this is what Eunomius meant, we would not reject the statement.

For here the nature of the things made like to one another is not different, and character and form share in common.

These, and such as these, are the things we have considered concerning the difference in the meaning of "like."

Let us see, then, with what in view Eunomius attests to the Son that special likeness toward the Father, when he says that he is "like the one who begot him only according to a special likeness, according to a peculiar sense, not as father is to father";

having promised to demonstrate the special likeness of the Son toward the Father, he in fact constructs, by his argument, a case for why it is not fitting to consider him like the Father at all.

For having said that [the Son] is not like [the Father] as father to father, he established by this statement that he is unlike him;

and again, having added that [the Son is] not unbegotten as [the Father] is unbegotten, by this too he forbade one to conceive of any likeness of the Son to the Father;

then, having further added that [the Father is not like the Son] as son to son, he introduced a third notion, by which he utterly does away with the very argument of likeness.

Thus, then, he follows his own line of argument, making his demonstration of "the like" by means of establishing "the unlike."

Let us examine his wisdom and simplicity, which he displays in these distinctions.

For having said that the Son is like the Father, he safeguards the hearer against the need to conceive of the Son as resembling the Father in the way that father resembles father.

But who among men is so foolish that, upon learning that the Son is like the Father, he would be led by reasoning to [think of] the likeness of father to father? "Nor," he says, "as son [is he like] son."

Again, the same acuteness holds in [his] distinction.

Having said that the Son is like the Father, he further stipulates that one must not regard him as similarly related to [the Father] as one son is to another.

These are the mysteries of Eunomius' solemn doctrines, by learning which his disciples become wiser than others — namely, that the Son, though like the Father, is not like a son;

nor [is he like the Father] as unbegotten is like unbegotten;

for the Son is not unbegotten.

But our mystery, when it says "Father," altogether signifies the Father of a Son, and when you name "Son," it teaches you to understand the Son of a Father.

And to this very day we have had no need of this superfluous wisdom, whereby, on account of "Father" and "Son," one supposes two fathers or two sons, or a pair of unbegottens.

What Eunomius' great zeal concerning "the unbegotten" aims at has already often been shown, and now again it shall be stated briefly.

For since the meaning of "Father" indicates no difference in nature with respect to the Son, if he had stopped his argument at this point, his impiety would have had no force, because the natural sense of the names does not admit of estrangement according to essence.

But now, by speaking of "unbegotten" and "begotten," since the opposition between these names is immediate to one another — as with "mortal" and "immortal," "rational" and "irrational," and all things similarly expressed, as many as stand opposed to one another through terms signifying contraries — he has given an opening to blasphemy through these very names, so as to discern in "begotten," with respect to "unbegotten," the same difference that "mortal" has with respect to "immortal";

and just as the nature of the mortal is one thing and that of the immortal another, and just as the properties of the rational and the irrational are incompatible in essence, so he wishes to establish that the nature of the unbegotten is one thing, and that of the begotten another, so that, just as the irrational nature has been fashioned subject to the rational, so he might show the begotten to be yoked under the unbegotten by natural necessity.

For this reason he joins to "the unbegotten" the name "Almighty [Pantokrator]," which — not with reference to providential operation, as our argument has already shown, but by shifting the interpretation of "Almighty" toward tyrannical power — [he uses] so as to make the Son also a part of the ruled and subject nature, serving, along with all things, the one who rules by tyrannical power, on equal terms with all things.

For having said those wise and carefully considered things — that [the Son] is not like [the Father] as father is like father, nor as son is like son — although indeed there is no necessity whatsoever that father resemble father, and son resemble son;

for there is a certain father among the Ethiopians, and a father among the Scythians as well, and the son of each of these — black is the son of the Ethiopian, while fair-skinned and golden-haired is the Scythian — and neither is the Scythian blackened on account of the Ethiopian's being a father, nor is the Ethiopian's body altered toward the whiteness of the Scythian, merely because each of them is a father — yet nevertheless, having said these things according to what pleased him, Eunomius went on to add that [the Son] is like [the Father] as a son is like a father, though such language properly indicates what is proper according to nature, as the divinely-inspired teaching testifies concerning Seth and Adam; but the dogmatist, giving little heed to those who listen with understanding, introduced a novel interpretation of the title "Son," defining him as "image and seal of the operation of the Almighty."

"For the Son," he says, "is the image and seal of the operation of the Almighty."

Let him who has ears to hear examine this first: what is the seal of an operation? For every operation is observed in the one who is working out the thing intended, but once the thing intended has been completed, [the operation] does not subsist by itself;

for example, the operation of the runner is the movement effected through the feet, but once the movement has ceased, the operation no longer exists by itself.

So too the same may be said of every pursuit: the operation ceases together with the effort of the one laboring at something, and it does not exist by itself, whether while someone is [still] exerting the effort set before him, or once he has ceased from the effort.

What then does he mean by saying that the operation — which is neither an essence, nor a stamp, nor a hypostasis — exists in itself? Then he has called him [the Son] the likeness of that which has no hypostasis;

but that which is like what does not subsist, is itself altogether non-existent.

This is the monstrosity of these novel doctrines: to believe in that which is not.

For that which is like the non-existent does not exist at all.

O Paul and John, and the rest of the choir of evangelists and apostles, who are they that arm their venom-spitting tongues against your voice? Who are they that raise up their croaking, frog-like voices against your heavenly thunders? What then does the son of thunder say? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

And what does that other one who [came] after him say — he who entered within the heavenly sanctuary, who in paradise was initiated into ineffable things? "Being," he says, "the radiance of [the Father's] glory and the imprint of his hypostasis."

What after these does the ventriloquist say? "A seal," he says, "of the operation of the Almighty."

He makes him third after the Father, mediated by that non-subsistent operation — or rather, shaped, according to what seems fitting, by non-existence.

Is he a seal of an operation — he who is the Word, being God in the beginning, and who is contemplated in the eternity of the beginning of all things; the only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father; who bears all things by the word of his power; the maker of the ages, from whom are all things and through whom are all things and in whom are all things; who holds the circle of the earth; who has meted out heaven with a span; who measures out the water with his hand; who has grasped all things that exist; who dwells on high and looks upon the lowly things — or rather, looks down upon them — that he might make the whole inhabited world his footstool, stamped with the imprint of the Word? Is the form of God a seal of an operation? Is God, then, an operation, and not a hypostasis? And yet Paul himself, in interpreting this very point, says that he is the character — not of the operation, but of the hypostasis.

Or is the radiance of glory a seal of God's operation? O impious ignorance!

Is this the preaching proclaimed by those entrusted with it concerning the Lord of creation — such things as this forerunner of apostasy recounts of him? What does he say? "As image," he says, "and seal of all the operation and power of the Almighty."

How does he misrepresent the words of the great Paul? That [apostle] says that the Son is the power of God, but this man calls him a seal of power, not power [itself].

And again, resuming his argument, what does he add to what has been said? He calls him a seal of the Father's works and words and counsels.

To which works of the Father is he like? He will surely say: the world, and all things in it.

But indeed the Gospel has testified that all these things are the works of the Only-begotten.

To what works of the Father, then, has the Son been made like? Of what works has he become the seal? And what Scripture has called him a seal of the Father's works? But even if one should grant him this — to fashion his words at will and by his own authority, even though Scripture does not agree — let him say what works of the Father are separate from those brought about by the Son, of which he says the Son has become the seal.

The works of the Word are all things visible and invisible;

among the visible things, the whole world and all things in it; among the invisible things, the supra-mundane creation.

Let him state the remaining works of which he says the Father is the maker, to which the Son has been made like — if indeed by "seal" he means likeness.

But what other "words" of the Father does Eunomius know, apart from the Word who is always in the Father, whom he calls a seal — the Word who truly and properly and primarily both is and is named "Word"? And to what "counsels," separate from the wisdom of God, does he look, to which the wisdom of God is made like, becoming a seal of the counsels? See the confusion and thoughtlessness and the rubbish of his argument — the manner in which he pours it out upon the mystery, knowing neither what he is saying nor concerning whom he speaks.

For he who has the whole Father in himself, and who is wholly in the Father as Word, Wisdom, Power, Truth, Character, and Radiance, is himself all things in the Father, not becoming an image and seal and likeness of certain other things beheld in the Father prior to him.